Just months after his pet terrier was snatched by a saltwater crocodile it tormented for years, Kai Hansen's pet chook has fallen victim to the same fate.
Mr Hansen said he tore through the dead of the night in his underwear shortly after realising a three-and-a-half-metre saltwater crocodile had broken into his chicken coop.
The Denmark-born Territorian operates a lodge on Goat Island, a tiny island girt by the crocodile-inhabited Adelaide River and only accessible by boat after more than an hour's driving from Darwin.
Local crocodiles have been known to entertain visitors to the lodge.
A large saltwater crocodile, Casey, had played a cat-and-mouse game with Mr Hansen's terrier, Pippa, for years, and made international headlines in June when it caught the agile pup in its jaws.
But after the latest incident, Mr Hansen said he wanted one of the crocodiles removed.
When he heard commotion from the chook pen early this morning, Mr Hansen found a pet chook had been eaten by a saltwater crocodile he named Fred.
"Malcolm, my rooster, he was letting me know in no uncertain terms that there was a problem there," he told ABC Radio Darwin's Adam Steer.
"It wasn't his usual morning call."
"There was a problem down there, so I put the spotlight on down at the chook pen and there was Fred halfway into the chook pen."
By Mr Hansen's estimation, Fred is three-and-a-half metres long and about 13 years old.
Mr Hansen said he used a stick to back the croc into a cage where he barricaded it overnight, with the intention of calling Parks and Wildlife rangers in the morning.
When he returned to the enclosure this morning, the creature had vanished.
"I got down at six o'clock to [call the rangers], but he managed to squeeze through a gap — I still cannot believe it," he said.
"He's great entertainment in the wet season because when Casey goes away nesting, then I don't have a croc coming in for the visitors."
"I want to get rid of him now because he's taken five or six of my chooks over the past three years."
