There were once only about 5,000 crocodiles in the Northern Territory. The population was decimated in the late 1940 and 1950s by hunters. A ban was placed on hunting and the exportation of skins in the early 1970s. Croc numbers have bounced back and are now estimated at 70,000.
I took this photo of a crocs eye today in Darwin –
view image. My image editing software is not on this computer and thus this image is rather large at 450 kbs and might take a little while to download.
Dr Grahame Webb was involved with the program to rebuild croc numbers. He told me the following three principles were promoted:
1. public education;
2. a program to contain problem crocs including trying to keep crocs out of Darwin harbour;
3. ensuring crocs had a commericial value – so landholders saw them as an economic asset rather than a pest.
About 20,000 eggs and 600 crocs are harvested from the wild each year under a permit system. Eggs sell for about $40 each while crocs sell for perhaps $500.
Many locals wish there weren’t so many… so they could swim at the beach again.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The moral of this is that if a something is seen as an asset, whether crocodile or forrest, then efforts to maintain them ensures their survival.
Anything that ends up in the “public domain” or becomes publicly owned, such as state forrests, ultimatly ends up in an unsatisfactory state. The fact of the raging bush fires in our forrests is but one example of the dictum that if everyone owns it, then no one does and responsilibility for its up keep is averted.
Public transport is another example.
As for swimming – whether crocs or sharks, swimming in the ocean is at best a hazardous activity, including Portugese men o war, and other oceaning life of the floating kind that makes life miserable for humans.
In any case if we were indeed a water creature we would not get prune fingers from extended periods in the sea. It suggests that perhaps we are venturing out of our domain.
Dare I say it, commercial asset.
Strange that my head has not been bitten off by the usual barnacles here.