Conserve or sacrifice? Life in Australia’s crocodile capital

Dawn breaks over Darwin Harbor and government ranger Kelly Ewin, whose job it is to catch and remove crocodiles, balances precariously in a floating trap.

Above our heads we can see heavy rain clouds from the storm that just passed. The boat’s engine has been shut down, so it is now virtually silent, aside from the intermittent splashing noise coming from inside the trap.

“You have virtually no chance with these guys,” Ewin says as he tries to wrap a rope around the agitated reptile’s jaw.

We’re in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT), home to approximately 100,000 wild saltwater crocodiles, more than anywhere in the world.

The capital, Darwin, is a small coastal town surrounded by beaches and wetlands.

And, as you quickly learn here in the New Testament, where there is water, there are usually crocodiles.

Saltwater crocodiles, or saltwater crocodiles as they are known to locals, were hunted almost to extinction 50 years ago.

After World War II, the uncontrolled trade in their furs skyrocketed and numbers fell to around 3,000.

But when hunting was banned in 1971, the population began to increase again… and quickly.

They are still a protected species, but are no longer threatened.

The saltwater crocodile’s recovery has been so dramatic that Australia now faces a different dilemma: managing their numbers to keep people safe and the public on its side.

“The worst thing that can happen is that people turn (against crocodiles),” explains crocodile expert Professor Grahame Webb.

“And then, invariably, a politician comes along with some knee-jerk reaction that they’re going to ‘solve’ the crocodile problem.”

The NT’s warm temperatures and abundant coastal surroundings create the perfect habitat for cold-blooded crocodiles, which need warmth to keep their body temperature constant.

There are also large populations of salties in northern Queensland and Western Australia, as well as parts of Southeast Asia.

While most crocodile species are harmless, the saltie is territorial and aggressive.

Fatal incidents are rare in Australia, but they do occur.

Last year, a 12-year-old boy was kidnapped – the first death by crocodile in the NT since 2018.

This is the busiest time of year for Ewin and his colleagues.

Breeding season has just begun, which means salties are on the move.

His team is out on the water several times a week, checking the 24 crocodile traps surrounding the city of Darwin.

The area is popular for fishing, as well as some brave swimmers.

Crocodiles taken out of port are usually killed, because if they are released elsewhere, they are likely to return to the port.

“Our job is to try to keep people as safe as possible,” says Ewin, who has been doing his “dream job” for two years. Before that, he was a police officer.

“Obviously, we’re not going to capture all the crocodiles, but the more we take out of the port, the lower the risk of there being an encounter with crocodiles and people.”

Another tool that helps keep the public safe is education.

The NT Government is reaching out to schools with its ‘Be Crocwise’ programme, which teaches people how to behave responsibly around crocodile habitats.

It has been such a success that Florida and the Philippines are now looking to borrow it to better understand how the world’s most dangerous predators can live alongside humans with minimal interactions.

“We live in crocodile country, so it’s about how (we stay) safe in the waterways: how should we respond?” says Natasha Hoffman, a ranger who runs the program at the NT.

“If you’re on the boats when you’re fishing, you have to be aware that they’re there. They’re ambush hunters, they sit and watch and wait. If they get a chance to grab some food, that’s what they’re going to do.”

In the NT, mass culling is not currently on the table given the species’ protected status.

However, last year the government approved a new 10-year crocodile management plan to help control their numbers, which increased the quota of crocodiles that can be killed annually from 300 to 1,200.

This is in addition to the work Ewin’s team is doing to remove any crocodiles that pose a direct threat to humans.

Every time there is a death, the debate about crocodiles living in close proximity to people is reignited.

In the days after the 12-year-old girl was captured last year, then Territory leader Eva Lawler made it clear she would not allow the reptiles to outnumber the NT’s human population.

Today, that number stands at 250,000, far above the number of wild crocodiles.

It is a conversation that goes beyond the New Testament.

Queensland is home to about a quarter of the number of crocodiles as the top end of the NT, but there are many more tourists and more deaths, meaning culls are sometimes talked about in election debates.

The superpredators may spark controversy, but they are also a big draw for the NT: for tourists but also for fashion brands eager to buy their hide.

Visitors can head to the Adelaide River to see “crocodile jumping”, which involves feeding the salties pieces of meat on the end of a stick if they can jump out of the water for the public.

“I’m supposed to tell them to put their (life jackets) on,” jokes Spectacular Jumping Croc Cruises head skipper Alex ‘Wookie’ Williams as he explains the ship’s house rules.

“What I don’t have to tell you… (is that) life jackets are pretty useless here.”

For Williams, who has been obsessed with crocodiles since childhood, there are many opportunities to work alongside them.

“There has been a boom in the last 10 years,” he says of the number of tourists coming to the region.

Agriculture, which emerged when hunting was banned, has also become an economic driver.

It is estimated that there are currently around 150,000 crocodiles in captivity in the NT.

Fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès, which sells a crocodile Birkin 35 bag for up to A$800,000 ($500,000; £398,000), have invested in the industry.

“Business incentives were effectively put in place to help people tolerate crocodiles, because we need a social license to be able to use wildlife,” says Mick Burns, one of the NT’s leading farmers working with luxury brands.

Their office is in the center of Darwin. Spread across the floor is a huge crocodile skin. Pinned to the wall of the conference room is another skin that extends at least four meters.

Burns is also involved in a ranch in remote Arnhem Land, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of Darwin. There, he works with Aboriginal rangers to collect and hatch crocodile eggs to sell their skins to the luxury goods industry.

One of the traditional owners in the area, Otto Bulmaniya Campion, who works alongside Burns, says more partnerships like his are crucial to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities share in the financial benefits of the industry.

For tens of thousands of years, crocodiles have played an important role in indigenous cultures, shaping their sacred stories, lives and livelihoods.

“My father, all the older ones, went to harpoon crocodiles, they got a skin and exchanged it for tea, flour and sugar. (However) there was no money at that time,” says the man from Balngarra.

“Now we want our own people to take care of the reptiles.”

But not everyone agrees with farming as a practice, even if those involved say it helps conservation.

Concern among animal activists lies in the way crocodiles are kept in captivity.

Despite being social animals, they are usually confined to individual pens to ensure their skin is pristine, as a fight between two territorial crocodiles would almost certainly damage a valuable asset.

Everyone in Darwin has a story about these formidable creatures, whether they want to see them hunted in greater numbers or more rigorously preserved.

But the threat they continue to pose cannot be imagined.

“If you go (swimming) in the Adelaide River next to Darwin, there’s a 100 per cent chance you’ll get killed,” Professor Webb says matter-of-factly.

“The only question is whether it will take five or ten minutes. I don’t think you’ll ever make it to fifteen, you’ll be destroyed,” he adds, pulling up his trouser leg to reveal a huge scar. on his calf: evidence of a close encounter with an angry female nearly forty years ago while collecting eggs.

He makes no apologies for what he calls the authorities’ pragmatism in managing numbers and making money from crocodiles along the way, a way of life that, at least for the near future, is here to stay.

“We’ve done what very few people can do, which is take a very serious predator… and then handle it in such a way that the public is prepared to (tolerate it).

“If you try to get people in Sydney, London or New York to put up with a serious predator, they’re not going to do it.”