Fourteen crocodiles at home and a new baby? It’s no problem for Matt
TV’S Monster Croc Wrangler, Matt Wright, is back… and Georgia Humphreys has him penned in
Not many dads have job titles as cool as Matt Wright’s. The croc wrangler, who was raised in the wilds of Papua New Guinea and the Australian outback, became a father for the first time when wife Kaia gave birth to Banjo in August.
And he will certainly be encouraging his son to be fearless as he grows up. “That’s a big thing, parents wrap their kids in cotton wool, ‘little Johnny can’t go out to play and get his hands dirty’,” says the affable TV personality, whose previous jobs include horse wrangler, Australian Army soldier and crocodile egg collector.
“How is a kid meant to understand and learn the wildlife and environment that he’s living in? Especially in big cities, they live in concrete jungles. All they want is a little bit of grass and dirt to play in. And a lot of kids don’t get that exposure. But yeah, Banjo is probably going to get more than enough.”
In the fourth series of Monster Croc Wrangler – airing on Nat Geo WILD – Wright travels across Australia with the goal of preserving wildlife, by removing problem animals so they won’t be killed.
We sat down with the wildlife relocator -– who’s also a trained helicopter pilot, and award-winning tourism operator – to find out more.
I work with crocodiles every day. I’ve got 14 at home. You don’t want to see them getting shot, so you rescue them, and they can’t get let back into the wild... Eventually I’m going to have a really nice park for them, but right now I’ve got them all in holding pens.
On his favourite moment in the new series...
I think being able to catch and leave a croc in the area that we caught it... that was probably my highlight, because you feel bad that these crocs have to be moved away from their homes. So, it’s quite nice when you can actually leave them there, close the area down [to the public], and say, ‘No swimming’.
On the dangers of the job...
I’m pretty good with the wildlife – that part I’m reasonably comfortable with. If I slip or something, that would give me a shake-up, because that’s my own fault. [This series] I flipped an air boat, in pretty bad waters. But that wasn’t caught on camera, because we had no cameramen, we were just out doing some work. That put the wind up us a bit.
On how he got into this field...
Wildlife has been ingrained in me ever since I was a kid. Before I could walk and talk, I was chasing frogs and lizards around in the back yard. As I grew, the wildlife grew with me and it settled into a job. I was a mustering pilot... Our biggest herd was 15,000 head of cattle – three days and four choppers.
Banjo is going to have a pretty interesting life. He’s got all the toys under the sun he can play with – boats, choppers, air boats. And he’s got as much wildlife at his fingertips to entertain himself. Everyone’s like, ‘Your life’s gonna change’ [when you become parents], but our life was never normal to start with. He just fits in. Like we jump in the chopper – we’ve got a lodge on our island resort – so we fly over there, we work there, and then if I need to fly to our outback camp, I go there, check on that. Life’s pretty simple really. The kid has to feed a few times a day and have his nappy changed and he sleeps, and it’s not hard.
It’s all well and good saying, ‘Don’t use plastic’. That definitely contributes, and that’s what big cities can do – clean up their act. But, as general human beings, you need to go and see the wildlife and go and see the environment and support some of the countries and communities that have this wildlife, and then they’ll respect it and they’ll look after it.
“Before I could walk and talk, I was chasing frogs and lizards around in the back yard”
We’re looking at expanding to more global stuff – Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Colombia, Africa, maybe go back up to Canada. It’s generally just about the humananimal conflict... and how to try and find solutions. In this day and age, any animal that we’re trying to protect has to go behind a wire, it has to be in a sanctuary, in a reserve, in pockets of bush land or rainforest that they can harbour in, otherwise they’re not going to survive.
● Monster Croc Wrangler Season 4 is on Nat Geo WILD. Monster Croc Wrangler Season 3 airs on Sunday mornings on Freeview channel BLAZE