Crocodile Safety by Mark Ward

During a recent trip to Darwin, my partner Bec and I did the tourist thing and took the kids to a crocodile park.

Bec and I have a fascination with crocs and we are in no way new to being in their company. Both of us lived in Weipa for many years and, with all the camping and fishing that I have done all over the Cape, seeing a croc is not exactly a new experience. However, when we were faced with the opportunity to be placed in a Perspex cage and lowered into a pool of big saltwater crocodiles, we jumped at the chance.

Being a little bored watching the crocs sleep while we were invading their waterhole, I decided to attract the attention of a large male salty while we were positioned over the top of him by swimming to the bottom of my safety cage and knocking. Just when I thought I irritated him enough for him to move away, he turned and snapped down on the cage, right where my head was positioned. If there was not a thick sheet of Perspex between myself and the croc it would have been lights out.

Interestingly, this all happened too quick for me to see and if it were a real situation, I doubt very much I would have even seen it coming. My head would have been in the mouth of the croc quicker then I could blink.

I have witnessed a croc grabbing a pig from a river bank on the Cape and, again, what struck me the most about this attack was that it happened so quick. The croc moved slowly out of the water towards a herd of pigs feeding on the river bank, which seemed oblivious to the danger approaching. Suddenly, a pig appeared in the jaws of the croc, seemingly without the reptile moving, demonstrating how a fully charged croc can attack quicker then the eye can follow.

It is enough to get you thinking twice about camping around croc country. Make no mistake, crocodiles see us as food. I was a paramedic operating an ambulance from Weipa and in that time we had two crocodile attacks that we attended. Both survived but with horrific injuries and a number of locals disappear on the Cape, never to be seen again.

So just how do we go about protecting ourselves as anglers when in croc country? If we plan on fishing, camping or boating anywhere that crocodiles inhabit then there is a risk of being attacked, so we must examine how to limit the threat.