‘Education, not eradication’: Croc advocates say culling won’t help
Calls for crocodiles in Queensland to be culled have intensified as advocates for the reptiles back in education to help prevent attacks, while the search continues for a Laura man believed to have been taken by a croc while fishing.
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Croc advocates have argued culling won’t make Far North waterways safer, as Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) renews its push to curb the reptiles’ numbers in the wake of a likely fatal attack in Cape York.
A News Corp poll showed 74 per cent of 2042 people agreed crocodiles should be culled.
Experienced angler and local publican Kevin Darmody, 65, vanished from the banks of the North Kennedy River at (Rinyirru) Lakefield National Park on April 29, and a search is under way.
KAP has put its Safer Waterways Bill to parliament previously.
It would create a Queensland Crocodile Authority based in Far North Queensland to self-manage crocodiles, provide funding for more rangers, egg harvesting economic opportunities for Indigenous communities, and a permit and licencing system to cull crocodiles.
KAP leader Robbie Katter said there had been a 329 per cent increase in croc sightings in the state from 2011 to 2021.
He said every sighting represented a potential tragedy and it was time to “thin them out”.
“The fact that you can cull dogs, horses, cats, pigs and kangaroos but not man-eating crocodiles is the height of environmental madness,” he said.
“Any politician worth their salt in Queensland on the ground knows anecdotally that they are exploding in numbers.”
The last crocodile fatality in Queensland was that of yachtsman Andy Heard, who was fishing in a small tender in a creek at Hinchinbrook Island in February 2021.
A man sleeping on Newell Beach was bitten on the leg by a crocodile on April 4 and a man spearfishing off Archer Point at Cooktown suffered significant injuries when attacked by a crocodile on April 7.
Barron River MP Caraig Crawford noted the bill had been rejected.
“I think we need solutions backed by research and evidence, not by politicians,” Mr Crawford said.
Conservationist Bob Irwin said the incidents were preventable.
“The Katter party is thinking about the emotional side of crocodile attacks, but we need to look at the science,” Mr Irwin said.
“It was human behaviour that influenced these incidents, and not following Crocwise advice,” he said.
“Australia has one of the lowest incident rates of saltwater crocodile attacks in the world, despite the population density.
“It’s pointless culling crocodiles – the problem isn’t solved by culling.”
He said increased education on what was a vulnerable species and on crocodile safety was needed.
Local croc authority and tourism operator David White said education was the only way to increase safety.
“I know people want guns and want to shoot crocs and they think that’s the answer but it’s not,” he said.
“DES is stuck in a very hard place balancing conservation with an animal that can kill you.
“But the biggest problem removing crocs is people then assume it is safe, so there’s increased complacency.
“It is not the croc you see that’s involved in the attack, it’s the one you don’t see, they are the perfect ambush predator, and we simply don’t know they are there.”
He said if crocs were removed from Queensland, where the population is believed to be between 20,000 and 30,000, experts believed crocs from the Northern Territory – which has 100,000 crocs – and from Papua New Guinea would move in.
“The ‘shoot the lot of them’ mentality is still entrenched in the Far North, but attacks are rare – education, not eradication,” Mr White said.
There have been 13 fatal attacks since December 1985 in Queensland.
By comparison, in 2022, there were 84 drowning deaths, a 25 per cent increase on the previous year, and 31 per cent of drowning deaths were flood-related.
Cairns crocodile advocate Tommy Hayes said education was key.
“Humans need to be held accountable for their idiotic decisions as well as complacency driven lapses in judgment,” Mr Hayes said.
“No one has ever been killed or attacked by a crocodile doing the right thing, ever.”
A parliamentary committee rejected the KAP bill in 2018, saying it was “ill-conceived” and likely to pose an “unacceptable risk”.
A Department of Environment and Science (DES) spokesman said it had a world-leading crocodile management program which had been endorsed by an independent panel of experts.
A 2021 review recommended DES consider annual removal of a modest number of crocodiles of more than 2.4m in length on the populated east coast.
The DES policy is that crocodiles are targeted for removal where they display dangerous behaviours around or toward humans.
“Statistics show that most attacks are made by crocs not reported or seen in an area until the moment of attack,” its report stated.
“The population started from a very low base, recovery is slow and highly variable across the state.
“The crocodile population in Queensland is highly unlikely to reach the size or the density of the Northern Territory due to lack of suitable habitat,” it states.
“While the crocodile population has continued to increase relatively slowly along the east coast between Cooktown and Ayr, the average size of crocodiles has reduced in this area – this is likely to be a consequence of the regular removal of ‘problem crocodiles’ under the management program.”
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Originally published as ‘Education, not eradication’: Croc advocates say culling won’t help
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