A saltwater crocodile that was captured near a campsite along the Fitzroy river in far northern Western Australia will live out its days as a tourist attraction.
The 3.7m male crocodile was caught in a trap on Sunday night after spending a few weeks hanging around the campground side of Telegraph Pool, a popular barramundi fishing spot near the mouth of the river.
Peter Carstairs, west Kimberley district wildlife officer for the WA department of parks and wildlife, said the trap was laid after campers complained on Facebook that the saltie had taken a stroll through the campground at night, apparently in search of fish.
It took eight people, including Carstairs and Nyikina Mangala rangers from the Kimberley Land Council, along with a winch tied to the back of a ute to remove the unhappy animal from the 5m aluminium trap on Monday.
“It was quite a difficult one,” Carstairs said.
The crocodile was then trussed up with duct tape – enough to keep its snout closed and allow rangers to cover its eyes, which Carstairs said makes crocs less aggressive.
It was then taken taken to the Malcolm Douglass Wilderness Wildlife Park near Broome, where it will star in the crocodile tour.
The cage, baited with a hunk of beef from feral cattle, was laid on the southern side of the bank, near the campground. Most of the resident crocodiles stick to the north bank, away from humans.
“We don’t want to remove all the crocs, we only want to remove the ones that are causing a human safety risk,” Carstairs said.
“We’ll monitor the situation for a few weeks to see if there are any more problems.”
Crocodile numbers in Western Australia have been increasing since they became a protected species in the 1970s. They are very common in the Kimberley, to the point that a number of locals refuse to swim in waters around Broome. The creatures have also been spotted at Exmouth, halfway down the coast to Perth.
The Fitzroy river population of saltwater or estuarine crocodiles goes as far inland as Fitzroy Crossing, more than 300km from the coast.
A number of dogs are reported taken every year but the last attack on a human was in 2012, when a tour boat operator was bitten on the leg while swimming in Dugong Bay. The last person killed by a crocodile in WA was 24-year-old American model Fay Ginger Meadows, whose death made the LA Times in 1987. The attack was later featured on episode of Your Worst Animal Nightmares.
The Northern Territory had four fatal crocodile attacks in 2014.
