It’s dawn in Darwin Harbor and government ranger Kelly Ewin – whose job it is to capture and remove crocodiles – is balancing precariously on a floating trap.
Heavy rain clouds from a storm that recently passed overhead. The boat’s engine has been turned off so it’s mostly silent now – that is, except for the occasional splash coming from inside the trap.
“You don’t stand a chance with these guys,” Ewin says as he tries to wrap the noose around the jaws of the agitated reptile.
We are located in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT), home to an estimated 100,000 wild saltwater crocodiles, more than anywhere else in the world.
The capital, Darwin, is a small coastal town surrounded by beaches and wetlands.
And, as you quickly learn here in NZ, where there’s water, there’s usually crocodiles.
Saltwater crocs – or salties, as the locals call them – were nearly exterminated by hunting 50 years ago.
After World War II, the uncontrolled trade in their hides skyrocketed and the number dropped to around 3,000.
But when hunting was banned in 1971, the population began to grow again – and quickly.
They are still a protected species, but they are no longer endangered.
The recovery of the saltwater crocodile has been so dramatic that Australia now faces a different dilemma: managing their numbers to keep people and the public safe.
“The worst thing that can happen is when people turn away [against crocodiles],” explains crocodile expert Prof. Grahame Webb.
“And then a politician will always appear with a knee-jerk reaction [that] they will ‘solve’ the crocodile problem.”
Life with predators
The NT’s high temperatures and rich coastal environment create the perfect habitat for cold-blooded crocodiles, which require warmth to maintain a constant body temperature.
In northern Queensland and Western Australia, as well as in parts of Southeast Asia, there are also large salt-eating populations.
While most crocodile species are harmless, the crocodile is territorial and aggressive.
Fatal incidents are rare in Australia, but they do happen.
A 12-year-old boy was kidnapped last year – the first crocodile death in the NT since 2018.
This is the busiest time of year for Ewin and his colleagues.
Mating season has just begun, which means the salties are on their way.
His team is out on the water several times a week, checking the 24 crocodile traps that surround the city of Darwin.
The area is popular for fishing, but also for some brave swimmers.
Crocodiles that are taken out of the harbor are usually killed, because if they are released elsewhere, they are likely to return to the harbor.
“Our job is to try to protect people as much as we can,” says Ewin, who has been working his “dream job” for two years. Before that he was a policeman.
“Obviously we’re not going to catch every crocodile, but the more we get out of the harbor, the lower the risk of encountering crocodiles and people.”
Another tool that helps keep the public safe is education.
The NT Government is entering schools with its “Be Crocwise” program – which teaches people how to behave responsibly around crocodile habitat.
It was such a success that Florida and the Philippines now want to borrow it to better understand how the world’s most dangerous predators can live alongside humans with minimal interactions.
“We live in the land of crocodiles, so it’s important how we do it [keep ourselves] safe around waterways – how should we respond?” says Natasha Hoffman, a ranger who runs the program in the NT.
“If you’re on a boat fishing, you have to be aware that they’re there. They’re ambush hunters, they sit, watch and wait. If they get a chance to grab food, that’s what they’ll do.”
In NZ, mass culling is currently off the table given the species’ protected status.
However, last year the government approved a new 10-year crocodile management plan to help control crocodile numbers, increasing the quota of crocodiles that can be killed annually from 300 to 1,200.
This is on top of the work Ewin’s team is doing to remove any crocodiles that pose a direct threat to humans.
Every time a death occurs, it reignites the debate about crocodiles living in close proximity to humans.
In the days after the 12-year-old girl was abducted last year, then-Territory leader Eva Lawler made it clear she would not allow the reptiles to outnumber the NT’s human population.
Currently, it is 250,000, which is far more than the number of wild crocodiles.
It is a conversation that goes beyond the NT.
Queensland is home to about a quarter of the number of crocodiles of the Top End NT, but has far more tourists and more deaths, meaning that talk of culling sometimes comes up in election debates.
Big deal
Top predators may cause controversy, but they are also a big draw for the NT – for tourists, but also for fashion brands looking to buy their skins.
Visitors can head to the Adelaide River to watch “croc jumping” – which involves salties feeding on pieces of meat on the tip of a stick if they can jump out of the water for their audience.
“I should tell you to put yours on [life-jackets] “, jokes head skipper at Spectacular Jumping Croc Cruises, 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 much useless here.”
For Williams, who has been obsessed with crocs since childhood, there are plenty of opportunities to work with them.
“It has experienced a boom in the last 10 years or so,” he says of the number of tourists coming to the region.
Farming, which was introduced when hunting was banned, also became an economic driver.
There are now an estimated 150,000 crocodiles in captivity in the NT.
Fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès – which sell a Birkin 35 croc bag for as much as A$800,000 ($500,000; £398,000) – have all invested in the industry.
“Commercial incentives are effectively put in place to help people tolerate crocodiles, because we need social permission to use wild animals,” says Mick Burns, one of the NT’s most prominent farmers who work with luxury brands.
His office is in the center of Darwin. A massive crocodile is spread across the floor. Attached to the wall of the conference room, there is another skin that stretches at least four meters.
Burns is also involved in a ranch in remote Arnhem Land, about 500 km (310 miles) east of Darwin. There, he works with Aboriginal rangers to harvest and hatch crocodile eggs to sell their skins to the luxury goods industry.
One of the area’s traditional owners, Otto Bulmaniya Campion, who works alongside Burns, says more partnerships like theirs are key to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities share in the industry’s financial benefits.
For tens of thousands of years, crocodiles have played a significant role in indigenous cultures, shaping their sacred stories, lives and livelihoods.
“My father, all the older ones, went to harpoon crocodiles, took the skin and left to exchange it for tea, flour and sugar. [However] there was no money at the time,” says the Balngarra man.
“Now we want to see our people deal with the reptiles.”
But not everyone agrees with farming as a practice — even if those involved say it helps with conservation.
The concern of animal activists lies in the way crocs are kept in captivity.
Despite being social animals, they are usually kept in individual pens to ensure their hides are immaculate – as a scrap between two territorial crocodiles would almost certainly damage the valuable goods.
Everyone in Darwin has a story about these terrifying creatures, whether they want to see them hunted in greater numbers or protected more strictly.
But the threat they continue to pose is not imaginary.
“If you go [swimming in] the Adelaide River next to Darwin, there’s a 100% chance you’ll be killed,” Professor Webb said importantly.
“The only question is whether it’s going to be five minutes or 10 minutes. I don’t think you’ll ever make it to 15 – you’ll be ripped,” he adds, pulling up his leg to reveal a huge scar. on his calf – evidence of a close encounter with an angry female almost forty years ago while collecting eggs.
He is unapologetic about what he calls the pragmatism of the authorities to run the numbers and make money off crocs along the way – a way of life that, at least for the near future, will remain.
“We’ve done what very few people can do, which is take a very serious predator…and then manage it in such a way that the public is prepared [tolerate] them.
“You try to get people in Sydney, London or New York to put up with a serious predator – they won’t do it.”
