THE BEAST MASTER

‘Monster Croc Wrangler’ back for Season 3

‘MONSTER Croc Wrangler” kicks off its third season Sunday night on Nat Geo WILD.

And unlike other recent series with headscratching titles — “Halt and Catch Fire,” “Turn” and “The Deuce” — “Monster Croc Wrangler” pretty much says it all.

The eight-episode outdoor adventures series stars Australian helicopter pilot/crocodile wrangler Matt Wright, who corrals crocs, either to relocate them to a safer haven or for research/educational purposes (no crocs are ever harmed). Sunday night’s season opener is super-sized in more ways than one, as Wright and sidekicks Jono Brown and Chris “Willow” Wilson trying to cage a surly oneton croc estimated, at one point, to have been around 18 feet long. (He’s missing about four feet of his tail and is believed to be over 100 years old.)

Just another day at the office.

“You can teach someone the basics around crocs — how to respond, where they’re going to hang out, their temperament — but it’s instinct, really, and something you have to sort of have in you,” Wright says of his training. “It’s definitely a niche field, but I had a passion for wildlife ever since I could walk and talk. I was bringing brown snakes home when I was 6 and I was looking after animals and releasing them back into the wild. That passion grew; I did a variety of different jobs to get to where I am now, from being in the army to being a plumber to housekeeping to being a mustering pilot [rounding up cattle with a helicopter].”

The idea for “Monster Croc Wrangler” was sparked about 10 years ago, when series co-creator/ executive producer Nick Fordham first approached Wright. “Matt was working all the territories as a helicopter pilot and animal re-locator and was working in Canada,” Fordham says. “I went up to the Northern Territory, borrowed a camera from my brother, who’s a journalist in Australia, and shot Matt doing what he does. I captured enough to realize there was something amazing in Matt ... he’s as genuine as what you see on TV. I’d never made a television show before and it took a while to pitch [the series]... but we went the long and hard way and it turned into something fruitful. We own all the content and we’re in 130 countries around the world. We’ve been global since Day One.”

And, Wright says, he’s been banged up several times while shooting the show. “I’ve had some pretty gnarly experiences,” he says. “I’ve been taken off a [crocodile] nest and pushed into the water and had a battle with a decent croc in the water. Got smashed up there while worrying about a 16-foot croc that might be behind me ’cause the 10, 12-footers got me in the water. I’ve had a few of those battles. I reckon I bloody broke a few vertebrae a few months back when a croc hit me under the back leg, lifted me about 12 feet in the air and I landed on my bloody head. That knocked me out as well.

“In one of the Season 3 episodes ... Jono was in the middle [of the boat], and I was at the front and Willow was at the back. He’s quite a big lad. A croc launched up and grabbed the back of the boat right next to Willow’s leg and Willow shifts himself — lifts his leg, which weighs about 70 kilos alone ’cause he’s such a big boy — and that off-centers the boat ... and a big wave comes over the side of the boat and nearly capsizes us.

“Jono sort of saved the day and he was shaking like a s--thouse and had to get to shore and do the rest of the job from there.”