A small saltwater crocodile has forced the evacuation of the popular Berry Springs swimming hole on the outskirts of Darwin.
Swimmers alerted rangers to the reptile in the main pool of the nature park, about 40 kilometres south of the city, said Neva McCartney, director of Northern Australian Parks for the Department of Tourism and Culture.
"This afternoon a few visitors reported what they thought was a crocodile in the main pool," she said.
"The rangers went and investigated and it was 95 per cent sure it was a small saltie, a saltwater crocodile.
"So we evacuated the pool and got everyone out of the water so we can go in tonight and do some surveys and try to locate the crocodile and remove it from the pool."
A ranger at the scene said they believed the crocodile was around 1 to 1.3 metres long.
Ms McCartney said the water will remain off limits for the next five days while surveys take place, beginning tonight.
She said another small crocodile was spotted in the same area during the swimming season several years ago.
"We never say it's 100 per cent," she said.
"We open places when we are comfortable with our survey requirements and everything we do by the plan.
"It's only a kilometre from salt water, so we have got all the traps in, we do all our surveys … but there's no real barriers to stop a small animal getting in there.
"That's why we do the surveys as regularly as we do.
"We quickly get into gear if we have any reportings and we close them as we did today."
