Precious Pearl makes all the white moves battling odds in wild
THE crown jewel of the Adelaide River may well be albino saltwater crocodile Pearl, named for her colour and standing as a gem.
One of the few white salties in the world, Pearl has survived the odds to become one of the favourite crocs — for tourists at least — in the NT.
A lack of melanin gives Pearl her white coat, robbing her of natural camouflage, which greatly reduced her odds as a baby crocodile.
Her vast array of predators has seen her act like a smaller crocodile, genuinely scared of the larger crocodiles like the 5m Knuckles or matron of the river, Mumma.
“What makes her so rare is the fact that she’s out here in the wild. White crocodiles themselves, there’s about one in 10,000, and there’s 10,000 crocs on the river, so
Pearl is the only white one,” Spectacular Jumping Crocodile Cruise deckhand Jonah Field said.
“I think there’s 0.0000025 per cent chance of survival for her. Your average croc has 0.1 per cent chance.
“The reason her survival rate is so low is she’s missing her natural camouflage. As you can tell, she stood out, but that’s pretty much the only reason, and the fact the other crocodiles don’t see her as a crocodile because she’s so different, so she does tend to get attacked by everyone. She’s always running away.”
There are theories that Pearl was a collector’s crocodile set free when she got too big, but Mr Field believes she’s just “very lucky”.
Her timid nature means sometimes even the world’s best explorers, including David Attenborough, have not been able to catch a glimpse of the snappy white beauty.