BBC
Saltwater crocodiles have been hunted to extinction in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. Now they are thriving
It’s dawn on Darwin Harbor and government ranger Kelly Ewin – whose job is to catch and remove crocodiles – balances precariously on a floating trap.
Large rain clouds from the storm that just passed are overhead. The boat’s engine has been shut off and it is now mostly silent, aside from the intermittent splashing coming from inside the trap.
“You pretty much have no chance with these guys,” Ewin says as he attempts to slip a noose around the flailing reptile’s jaw.
We’re in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT), home to around 100,000 wild saltwater crocodiles, more than anywhere in the world.
The capital, Darwin, is a small coastal town surrounded by beaches and wetlands.
And as you will quickly learn here in the NT, where there is water, there are usually crocodiles.
Watch: BBC’s Katy Watson is on board with crocodile rangers in Darwin Harbour, Australia
Saltwater crocodiles – or salties, as locals call them – were hunted to extinction 50 years ago.
After World War II, the uncontrolled trade in their skins increased significantly and their numbers fell to around 3,000.
But when hunting was banned in 1971, the population began to increase again – and quickly.
They are still a protected species, but are no longer threatened.
The recovery of the saltwater crocodile has been so spectacular that Australia now faces a different dilemma: managing its numbers to ensure human safety and public participation.
“The worst thing that can happen is when people turn (against crocodiles),” says crocodile expert Professor Grahame Webb.
“And then a politician will invariably have a knee-jerk reaction (by saying) that he’s going to ‘solve’ the crocodile problem.”
Living with predators
The NT’s warm temperatures and abundant coastal surroundings create the ideal habitat for cold-blooded crocodiles, which require warmth to maintain their body temperature constant.
There are also large saltie populations in northern Queensland and Western Australia as well as parts of Southeast Asia.
While most crocodile species are harmless, the saltie is territorial and aggressive.
Fatal incidents are rare in Australia, but they do happen.
Last year a 12-year-old child was abducted – the first crocodile death in the Northern Territory since 2018.
It’s the busiest time of year for Ewin and his colleagues.
Breeding season has just started, which means the salties are on the move.
His team is out on the water several times a week checking the 24 crocodile traps surrounding the city of Darwin.
The area is popular for fishing, as well as some brave swimmers.
Crocodiles removed from port are most often killed, because if released elsewhere they are likely to return to port.
“It’s our job to try to keep people as safe as possible,” says Ewin, who has had his “dream job” for two years. Before that, he was a police officer.
“Obviously we’re not going to capture all the crocodiles, but the more we get out of the port, the less risk there will be of encounters with crocodiles and humans.”
Kelly Ewin’s job is to capture and remove crocodiles from Darwin Harbor
Education is another tool that helps keep the public safe.
The NT Government is going to schools with its ‘Be Crocwise’ program – which teaches people how to behave responsibly around crocodile habitats.
It’s so successful that Florida and the Philippines are now looking to borrow it, to better understand how the world’s most dangerous predators can live alongside humans with minimal interaction.
“We live in crocodile country, so it’s a question of how do we keep ourselves safe around waterways. How should we respond?” says Natasha Hoffman, a ranger who runs the program in the NT.
“If you are on the boats when fishing you need to be aware of their presence. They are ambush hunters, they sit, watch and wait. If the opportunity presents itself for them to take food, it “That’s what they’re going to do.”
In the Northwest Territories, mass culling is not currently considered given the protected status of the species.
Saltwater crocodiles are the largest living reptile in the world
However, last year the government approved a new 10-year crocodile management plan to help control their numbers, which increased the quota of crocodiles that can be killed each year from 300 to 1,200.
This is in addition to the work Ewin’s team is doing to remove all crocodiles that pose a direct threat to humans.
Every time there is a death, it reignites the debate about crocodiles living near humans.
In the days following the kidnapping of the 12-year-old girl last year, Eva Lawler, then the Territory’s leader, made clear that she would not allow the reptiles to outnumber the Territory’s human population. North.
Currently, this figure stands at 250,000, far more than the number of wild crocodiles.
This is a conversation that goes beyond the NT.
Queensland is home to about a quarter of the number of crocodiles that the NT’s Top End has, but there are far more tourists and more deaths, meaning talk of culls sometimes features in election debates.
Large company
These large predators may be controversial, but they are also a major asset to the NT – for tourists but also for fashion brands keen to buy their leather.
Visitors can head to the Adelaide River to watch “crocodile jumping”, which involves feeding bastards pieces of meat on the end of a stick if they can jump out of the water for their audience.
“I’m supposed to tell you to put your (life jackets) on,” jokes Spectacular Jumping Croc Cruises head captain Alex “Wookie” Williams as he explains the boat’s house rules.
“What I don’t need to tell you… (is that) life jackets are pretty useless here.”
For Williams, who has been obsessed with crocodiles since childhood, there are plenty of opportunities to work alongside them.
“It’s been booming for the last decade or so,” he says of the number of tourists coming to the area.
Getty Images
Wild crocodile shows are held in the NT to attract tourists
Agriculture, which emerged when hunting was banned, also became an economic engine.
It is estimated that there are now around 150,000 crocodiles in captivity in the Northern Territory.
Fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès – which sells a croc Birkin 35 handbag for up to A$800,000 ($500,000; £398,000) – have all invested in the industry.
“The commercial incentives were actually put in place to help people tolerate crocodiles, because we need a social license to use wildlife,” says Mick Burns, one of the Territory’s largest farmers. from the North who works with luxury brands.
Its office is in downtown Darwin. A huge crocodile skin is spread on the ground. Pinned to the conference room wall, another skin stretches at least four meters.
Mick Burns has worked in the Northern Territory’s crocodile farming industry for years.
Burns is also involved in ranching in the remote Arnhem region, about 500 km (310 miles) east of Darwin. There, he works with Aboriginal rangers to collect and hatch crocodile eggs in order to sell their skins to the luxury goods industry.
One of the area’s traditional owners, Otto Bulmaniya Campion, who works alongside Burns, says more partnerships like theirs are crucial to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities share in the financial benefits of the industry.
For tens of thousands of years, crocodiles have played an important role in indigenous cultures, shaping their sacred stories, lives and livelihoods.
“My father, all the elders, went to harpoon crocodiles, collect a skin and exchange it for tea, flour and sugar. (But) there was no money at that time,” says the man from Balngarra.
“Now we want to see our own people taking care of the reptiles.”
But not everyone agrees with farming as a practice – even if those involved say it helps conservation.
Animal rights activists’ concern lies in the way crocodiles are kept in captivity.
Although they are social animals, they are usually confined to individual enclosures to ensure their skin is spotless – as a bite between two territorial crocodiles would almost certainly damage a valuable possession.
Native Society of Native Swamp Rangers
Otto Bulmaniya Campion is a Traditional Owner from the Central Arnhem Land region of the Top End.
Everyone in Darwin has a story about these fearsome creatures, whether they want to see them hunted in greater numbers or more rigorously preserved.
But we cannot imagine the threat they continue to represent.
“If you go (swimming) in the Adelaide River near Darwin, there’s a 100 per cent chance you’ll be killed,” Professor Webb says matter-of-factly.
“The only question is whether it’s going to take five minutes or ten minutes. I don’t think you’ll ever make it to 15 minutes. You’ll be torn,” he adds, pulling up his pant leg to reveal a huge scar. on her young – evidence of a close encounter with an angry female nearly forty years ago while collecting eggs.
He makes no apologies for what he calls the authorities’ pragmatism in running the numbers and making money from crocodiles – a way of life that, at least for the near future, is here to stay.
“We did what very few people can do, which is take a very serious predator…and then manage it in such a way that the public is willing to (tolerate) it.
“You try to get people in Sydney or London or New York to put up with a serious predator, they won’t.”
