Australian rangers capture 15ft crocodile after ten-year hunt

Wildlife rangers in northern Australia said they have trapped a 15ft saltwater crocodile after trying to catch it for ten years.

The creature is the largest they have ever caught in the Katherine River.

It was captured in a region popular with tourists that is considered relatively safe from the killer predators.

Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife said it had trapped the 600kg (1,300lb) reptile more than 185 miles from the ocean and only 19 miles downstream from Katherine Gorge, a major tourist attraction outside the town of Katherine.

Tourists swim, canoe and take cruises in the gorge among freshwater crocodiles, a different species that are small, timid and rarely harm humans.

Ranger John Burke said authorities had been hunting the crocodile for a decade.

“We’ve called it a lot of things over the years because it’s been so hard to catch,” Mr Burke said. “On record, this is the biggest saltwater crocodile removed from the Katherine management zone,” he added, referring to the part of the river where saltwater crocodiles are trapped because they are too close to human populations.

Northern Territory-based crocodile expert Grahame Webb said saltwater crocodiles were heading further upstream into fresh water as their population has boomed since they were protected by federal law in 1971.

While large crocodiles are territorial, Mr Webb suspected the trapped reptile had moved to and from the area where it was caught during the past ten years.

Satellite tracking had shown one crocodile tagged in a Northern Territory waterhole had swum 560 miles, for unknown reasons, before returning to the same place.

Mr Webb said the capture so close to tourists demonstrated that the government protection programme worked.

“It’s worrying, but it’s good that they’ve got an active programme and they’ve got active traps,” Mr Webb said.

The reptile has been taken to a crocodile farm outside Katherine where it is likely to become a tourist attraction.

Crocodiles are farmed for their meat and hides, but large and battle-scarred crocodiles are usually unsuitable for the handbag market. Since crocodiles became a protected species, numbers in the Northern Territory have exploded from 3,000 to an estimated 80-100,000.

Becausesaltwatercrocodiles can live for up to 70 years and grow throughout their lives, reaching up to seven metres, the proportion of large crocodiles is also rising.

0 The 15ft saltwater crocodile is trussed up ready to be transferred to a crocodile farm