Rare albino crocodile shot dead after fatal attack
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E-mail Xinhua, August 20, 2014
Australia's best-known crocodile, a rare, albino-headed reptile known as Michael Jackson, has been shot by park rangers after it killed a man on the Adelaide River in the Northern Territory on Monday.
The incident has focused attention on the growing numbers of crocodiles in the Top End, the tropical north of Australia, since the species was protected by federal law in 1971.
The attack on the 57-year-old fisherman, who was taken from the river's edge by the 4.5-meter crocodile while he tried to unsnag his fishing line, is the fourth such fatality in the Top End in the past 12 months.
The man's wife witnessed the attack and was treated by paramedics at the scene for shock.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles said the incident was "a sign that the density and population of crocs in the NT is becoming somewhat of an issue."
"We don't want to see a knee-jerk reaction," he said in Darwin on Tuesday. Cabinet would consider culling as a long-term policy, as well as safari hunting.
"It's not about going out and randomly killing crocs, it's about having a well-developed plan that protects the interests of the animal but also the interests of the general public," Giles said.
Thousands of tourists flock to see the crocodiles of Adelaide River, south of Darwin, each year.
In the latest incident, the man was attacked near the Arnhem Highway bridge, close to where cruise ships show sightseers crocodiles leaping from the water to snatch chicken carcasses suspended from poles.
Police Superintendent Bob Harrison told the ABC that the reptile had regularly leapt for chickens dangled from the cruise ships and was well known to operators of the Spectacular Jumping Crocodile Cruise.
Police and rangers scouring the crocodile-infested river by boat that night shot and killed the crocodile and recovered the man's body.
"They acted appropriately to shoot him but it's a real shame they had to do it," Adam Britton, a crocodile researcher at Charles Darwin University, told Australian Associated Press.
"He is a well-known, well-loved crocodile."
He said albinism is "incredibly rare" in crocodiles and " Michael Jackson" was a main attraction for tourists on the numerous Jumping Croc cruises based along the river, where boats travel the river dangling meat attached from hooks for crocodiles to jump up and snatch.
"It was always a thrill when he appeared," Dr Britton said.
He said there was no evidence the cruises made the crocodiles more aggressive or likely to attack humans and if anything they proved crocodile management and tourism were viable and a boost for the economy.
"If a crocodile attacks someone, particularly at a place where there's a lot of tourism, and with people using boat ramps, it makes it more dangerous because that croc has figured out it can take someone and is more likely to try it again," he said.
In June, a 4.7-meter crocodile snatched a 62-year-old fisherman from his dinghy on the South Alligator River in the Northern Territory. A 12-year-old boy and 22-year old man were also taken by crocodiles in separate attacks in the region earlier this year.
But Dr Britton said fatal crocodile attacks were only slowly on the rise, from an average of one death per year to 1.5 or two.
He said Northern Territorians were becoming complacent and deaths were not the way people should be reminded about crocodile safety.
"This man almost certainly would have known there were crocodiles in the river and he probably even knew the croc that took him," he said. "For a fleeting moment, he should have thought about that; he took a little risk and that was enough."
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