Diving with wild crocodiles

By Anna-Louise TaylorReporter, BBC Nature News

As prehistoric predators, crocodiles have a fearsome man-eating reputation, but little is known of their behaviour underwater in the wild. Now scientists are risking their lives to study the reptiles in their natural habitat. But can it ever be safe to dive with a crocodile?

They have been around for more than 100 million years, but much crocodile behaviour remains a mystery, as they spend around 80% of their lives underwater.

Nile crocodiles can grow up to six metres long, live up to 100 years old, and weigh up to half a tonne. Fully-grown crocs have the strongest bite of any animal, and they are indiscriminate about what they eat - wildebeest, fish or humans.

The Nile croc is a protected species in Botswana under wildlife law, and the crocodile population is slowly growing as water levels rise and more habitat becomes available.

But, as the human population also increases, crocodile attacks are on the rise. Figures show 55% of croc attacks are fatal and it is hoped that, by understanding croc behaviour, lives may be saved.

So how can we find out more about wild crocs, when it is so dangerous to get into the water with them?

Zoologist Dr Adam Britton has been studying crocodiles for nearly 18 years, and headed to Botswana's Okavango Delta to run a week-long pilot research project investigating where they hide before attacking, and how they detect prey.

Read on:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17032648

Croc killed Cairns spear fisherman

The Northern Coroner's Office has confirmed the fatal injuries suffered by Cairns spear fisher David Fordson earlier this month were caused by a "large estuarine crocodile".

The advice prompted warnings for boaties and divers to take extra precautions when visiting coastal Cape York this summer with crocodiles being spotted well offshore and at popular mooring sites.

In a statement, a coroner’s spokesperson said a post-mortem examination had been carried out during which police had sought specialist opinion from experts in crocodile and shark behaviour.

Mr Fordson, 49, was skipper of the cargo barge Torres Starservicing the Cairns to Thursday Island route when, ahead of schedule, they stopped to fish at the remote Cairncross Island group.

The alarm was raised when Mr Fordson failed to return to the vessel and his body was found in the early hours of December 6, with injuries initially thought to be from either a crocodile or a shark.

Underwater filmmaker and experienced boatie Ben Cropp has spent many years travelling the Cape York coastline and said he had noticed increasing numbers of crocodiles in the area.

Early summer is mating season for the animals, when the males are wandering further afield and looking for a female.

"On a recent trip we saw a lot of crocodiles and croc tracks all the way down the coast, and crocodiles at every offshore 
island we went to," he said.

"We’re talking six or eight miles out … on one little sand cay we saw three crocodiles, with three big tiger sharks in the shallows.

"These look like lovely places to moor but they are actually very, very dangerous, and Bushy Cay (where Mr Fordson was attacked) is only about three miles off the coast so it’s a lot closer to shore."

Mr Cropp said over the past seven years he had frequently seen a 3.5m crocodile lying on the sand at Bushy Cay.

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2011/12/23/197701_local-news.html

Crocodile invites self into Australian home

CANBERRA, Australia — Wildlife rangers have helped an Australian family deal with an uninvited guest: a 5-foot-6-inch (1.7-meter) crocodile that wandered into their living room.

The juvenile saltwater crocodile wandered into a home in Bees Creek, a suburb of the northern Australian city of Darwin. Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that the family found it in a partially enclosed living area Saturday morning after their dog's barking woke them.

Resident Jo Dodd describes the encounter as "a very surreal moment" and "the most freakiest thing." She suspects the croc might been stalking the dog.

Crocodile management official Dani Best told ABC the croc might have been forced out of a nearby creek by a larger croc. The intruder has been relocated to a crocodile farm.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45916591/ns/world_news-weird_news/#.Tw7aoqV-XtE

Cranky croc steals Aussie zoo worker's lawn mower (Via Herp Digest)

Cranky croc steals Aussie zoo worker's lawn mower
By KRISTEN GELINEAU 
Associated Press 12/28/11

SYDNEY (AP) -- A giant saltwater crocodile named Elvis with an apparent affinity for household machinery charged at an Australian reptile park worker Wednesday before stealing his lawn mower.
Tim Faulkner, operations manager at the Australian Reptile Park, north of Sydney, was one of three workers tending to the lawn in Elvis' enclosure when he heard reptile keeper Billy Collett yelp. Faulkner looked up to see the 16-foot (5-meter), 1,100-pound (500-kilogram) crocodile lunging out of its lagoon at Collett, who warded the creature off with his mower.

"Before we knew it, the croc had the mower above his head," Faulkner said. "He got his jaws around the top of the mower and picked it up and took it underwater with him."

The workers quickly left the enclosure. Elvis, meanwhile, showed no signs of relinquishing his new toy and guarded it closely all morning.

Eventually, Faulkner realized he had no other choice but to go back for the mower.
Collett lured Elvis to the opposite end of the lagoon with a heaping helping of kangaroo meat while Faulkner plunged, fully clothed, into the water. Before grabbing the mower, however, he had to search the bottom of the lagoon for two 3-inch (7-centimeter) teeth Elvis lost during the encounter. He quickly found them and escaped from the pool, unharmed and with mower in tow.

Though many may question the wisdom of going after a couple of teeth with a massive crocodile lurking just feet away, Faulkner said finding them was critical. "They clog up the filter systems," he said.
And, he said, "They're a nice souvenir."

Elvis has a history of crankiness and has lunged at staff before, though this is the first time he has stolen something from one of the workers. The croc was initially captured in the northern Australian city of Darwin, where he had been attacking fishing boats. He was then moved to a crocodile farm, where he proceeded to kill his two crocodile girlfriends.

In 2008, he was moved to the reptile park, where he has enjoyed solitary confinement in his own enclosure.

"When they are the dominant croc, they're just full of testosterone," Faulkner said. "He's got his beautiful own yard, he wants to be a solitary creature. He's happy."

Despite having to give up the lawn mower, Elvis was clearly pleased with himself, Faulkner said.
"He's beaten us today ... he's kingpin," Faulkner said. "He's going to be walking around with his chest puffed out all day."

As for the staff at the reptile park?

"I can't lie, the bosses are not going to be happy about the cost of a new lawn mower," Faulkner said with a laugh. "(But) we love it. No one's injured ... and when you get scared and it all turns out to be good, it's actually quite enjoyable."

Crocodile left outside animal park

Staff at an exotic animals learning centre have condemned the owner of a young crocodile who dumped the reptile outside the premises in near-freezing temperatures.


Jimmy Wick, who runs Wickid Pets animal park in Wolverhampton, said the metre-long female crocodile - left in a sealed box on Thursday morning - was the latest in a string of animals to be abandoned near his gates.

The animal expert, whose centre offers guidance in caring for exotic species, said of the crocodile: "It's the fourth one we've had in 18 months and so now when we see a plastic box we have to approach it with caution.

http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/crocodile-left-outside-animal-park

Siamese Crocodile Critically endangered crocodilian species

Two hundred and thirty million years ago, the first crocodilians evolved from archosaurs or "ruling reptiles" during the mid-Triassic period of the Mesozoic era when primitive dinosaurs also roamed the planet. Crocodiles have changed little in body structure since then. Apart from birds, these reptiles are the only living archosaurs.


In 1909, J.B. Hatcher discovered a few fossilized bits and pieces of a giant alligator in Montana from the late Cretaceous period 80 million years ago. Deinosuchus was also found in Texas by Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1940s.

The skull of this huge crocodilian is two meters long and body length estimated at about 12 meters with a weight of 8.5 tonnes.

Sarcosuchus was another crocodile some 12 meters long and weighing up to 10 tonnes. Fossils were first found in Central Africa from the early Cretaceous 112 million years ago by French paleontologist Albert-Felix de Lapparent in 1964, and then by France de Broin and Phillip Taquet in 1966. Later in 1997, Paul Sereno discovered more fossils in the sub-Sahara desert and then tagged the beast as "super-croc".

This huge crocodilian was also unearthed in Brazil by a British geologist, and described by Eric Buffetaut and P. Taquet in 1977 as the same species found in Africa. These "super-crocs" pulled dinosaurs and other large animals into the water and devoured them.



Read more here ...

RIVER MONSTER ALERT

A MYSTERY creature that eats geese in the blink of an eye has returned to haunt murky waters around the £9billion Olympic Park.

Six years ago there were fears a crocodile was stalking big birds as they were sucked from a river’s surface – never to be seen again.

Some experts then suggested a giant turtle was the culprit, but before the riddle could be solved the killer monster apparently vanished.

Now it seems to be back. Mike Wells, a boat-dweller living on the River Lea in East London, was last week sitting on his barge with a friend when their peace was shattered.

Mike said: “We were just passing the time of day looking at a Canada goose 30 yards away, but then it just suddenly disappeared.

“It went down vertically. There wasn’t any hesitation, it went straight down. It didn’t come back up. My friend and I looked at each other slack-jawed.

“Being a river person, I pieced together what we’d seen in seconds. The goose was prey to something.

“A Canada goose is not a small bird. They weigh about 16lb, so whatever took it was also large.”

Searching for answers, Mike then came across several similar incidents from 2005 when there was speculation a crocodile might have taken up residence in the River Lea.

Mike now wants the Environment Agency to investigate. A campaigner against the 2012 Olympics’ impact on East London, he also joked: “My hope is Lord Coe will fall in and the creature will have him for lunch.”

By Ted Jeory

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/282001/River-monster-alert

BOTSWANA: Government calls off Maun crocodile hunt (Via Herp Digest)

Governmentt calls off Maun crocodile hunt

Mmegi, 10/27/11-MAUN: The Department of Wildlife and National Parks has called off an operation to recapture crocodiles that escaped from a farm in Setatunga.

The reptiles escaped from the Okavango Swamps Crocodile Farm last month after floodwaters swept them into the Setatunga River, which is a tributary of the Thamalakane River.Ngamiland Regional Wildlife Officer, Molothanyi Othomile told Mmegi that the search for the crocodiles was stopped because there were no more reports of the reptiles in the Setatunga area.

He said more than 200 crocodiles were captured and returned to the farm. Thirty-five were earlier on shot to reduce conflict as they had already resorted to killing and eating livestock, he said. The shooting was stopped after concerns that the ammunition might contaminate the river and endanger not only the river system but also residents of Setatunga and Tsanakona settlements who rely on it for their water supply.

At the time, government took the decision to kill the crocodiles, the giant reptiles had already slain at least 100 goats and two calves. Although the owners of the animals were promised that the crocodile farm owner Albert Willers would compensate them, they have not yet received anything from him. In an earlier interview with The Monitor, two women farmers in the area, Bosiame David who lost 32 goats and Keseme Taolo expressed worry that they may never be compensated.

Frank Ramsden who is the Member of Parliament for Maun West also feigned ignorance about the crocodiles. "I only read about it in the papers and nobody has informed me about it," he told Mmegi last week, after addressing a Kgotla meeting in Borolong ward.

The escape of the reptiles from the crocodile farm has raised questions about crocodile farming in Botswana and the need for regulation of the industry. According to the Wildlife Department, a farmer can keep as many crocodiles as he can manage. The extent to which a farmer "can manage" crocodiles has become a contentious issue in Maun lately as villagers want to know from government if the farm could be overcrowded.

For example, with over two thousand crocodiles in its cabins and swamps concerns have surfaced that the farm was overcrowded and prone to crocodile escapes whenever there is a flash flood, which is what eventually happened.The ownership and licensing of the farms has also come under scrutiny. Here again the law is silent on whose responsibility it is to monitor the farms.

The Setatunga Farm management in particular has been accused of failing to conform to best environmental practices as they allegedly channel dirty water from the crocodile ponds into the Setatunga River. Efforts by this newspaper to contact the farm owner have been futile. For a month since we have been following this story his mobile either rings unanswered or is off air.

Friendly croc croaks

Pocho the friendly Costa Rican crocodile has died in the Caribbean town of Siquirres.

The 50-year-old crocodile gained international fame for his weekly Sunday show he performed with owner Gilberto Sheedan.

Olga Valle, wife of Sheedan, said: "All of the people in the village have offered their condolences and assistance."

Chito, 54, described the one-eyed crocodile 'domesticated'. He could command Pocho to do tricks such as winking its one good eye, lifting its head and tail out of the water, rolling over and permitting Chito to stick his head inside the massive reptile's maw.

Chito found the five-metre-long crocodile close to death on the shore of the Parismina river, in the Limón province, 17 years ago. The crocodile had been shot in the left eye.

Chito and several friends loaded the animal into a boat and took him to Siquirres, where Pocho was nursed back to health. Chito even slept with the crocodile during its recovery.

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Pocho_passes_away

Crocodile suddenly turns orange

A crocodile has suddenly and unexpectedly turned orange in Australia.

Worried keepers at Geelong, near Melbourne, thought the eight foot croc, known as Snappy, was on his last legs.

"I thought he was really sick. I thought he was dying," said his keeper Tracy Sandstrom, who runs a mobile reptile display called Roaming Reptiles.

But it turned out the crocodile, who sleeps in a heated bath at night, had been chewing on the water pipes, damaging the filter.

This caused the filter to stop working and pH levels in the water to rise.

Experts believe red algae or tannins from fallen leaves which would normally have stayed out of his water due the filter managed to get in, which combined with the raised pH led to the change in his colour.

In time he should return to his natural green colour.

"There's no change in his behaviour, his aggression, his territorialism. He's still a really nasty crocodile," said Ms Sandstrom.

"It's a collector's item now. Everyone will want one. I should have put him on eBay."

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Crocodile_suddenly_turns_orange

How Todd Bairstow survived a crocodile attack (Via Herp Digest)

Sunday Mail (Adelaide, Australia) 8/20/11 by Emily Watkins

It had come down to one final decision: drown or be eaten alive.

After a full half-hour of clinging to mangroves, fighting against a crocodile for his life, Todd Bairstow was ready to give up. He had even tried to throw his dog at the growling beast in the hope it would eat that instead - but nothing would loosen its grip.

"I was just about to let go - I couldn't do it anymore," he said. "It felt like my arms were just going to snap off. "I was thinking: right, do I drown myself or get eaten alive?"

The Port Pirie mine worker had been fishing alone on the bank of a Weipa river, in Queensland's north, in March. He was reeling in the line after his first cast when the 3.2m estuarine crocodile launched itself out of the water and latched on to his leg.

Growling like a dog, the croc knocked him over and tried to drag him into the water. Now, five months and 13 operations later, Mr Bairstow, 29, has finally returned home.

"My life flashed before my eyes. I was thinking about not having kids and that," he said. "I thought about how upset Mum and Dad would be - it was just flash, flash, flash."

Mr Bairstow said he had managed to grab hold of a mangrove as the crocodile tried to drag him into the river. While he clung to its branches, the croc tried to death roll him three times while it held his legs in its jaws, dislocating both of his knees. He heard them pop as the croc tried to twist him around.

As minute by minute ticked by, Mr Bairstow yelled desperately for help as he tried to poke it in the eyes and hit it on the head. "If I had a knife I might have been able to get it in the eyes," he said. "But none of it made any difference."

In a desperate last ditch effort, Mr Bairstow even tried to feed his dog - a three-month-old puppy that had been yapping the entire time - to the hungry croc. "I went to throw him over my shoulder to the croc, but he took off and left me by myself," he said.

"It was a lonely place to be."

He was just about to let go and be dragged into the murky water when he heard a woman's voice: "Help's coming, love". "It gave me a second wind," he said. The woman had heard him screaming from a pub about 350m up the creek, and within minutes his mate, Kevin Beven, was on the bank, pulling him from the beast's jaws.

"And then these four Aboriginal fellas arrived, hitting the croc with rocks and sticks until it p---ed off back into the water," Mr Bairstow said. His Port Pirie parents, Luke and Cathy, left town as soon as they heard of the attack on March 9, and flew out of Adelaide the next day.

"I thought, 'If he got attacked by a croc, you don't survive'," Luke Bairstow said. "If he survived, he's got to have horrific injuries, but the main thing was that he was still with us." Luke and Cathy spent two months at their son's Cairns hospital bedside, wanting to stay until he could walk with crutches.

He is finally back in the family home while he does physiotherapy every day and attends specialist appointments once a month in Adelaide. Mr Bairstow had been living away from Port Pirie for eight years, working in mines in the Kimberleys, Northern Territory and Cape York.

He said he may need yet another operation on one of his knees, and spent his days cycling, walking and doing weights as physiotherapy. He said he hoped to be back at his Rio Tinto job in north Queensland at the end of this year.

Big fossil croc may have competed with giant snake

The fossilised remains of 6m (20ft) -long extinct crocodile relatives have been discovered in a mine in Colombia.

The massive croc would have lived at the same time as the world's largest-known snake and may even have competed with it for food.

The remains were discovered in the Cerrejon mine of northern Colombia, one of the world's largest open-pit coal mines.

A US team has described the specimens in the journal Palaeontology.

The freshwater creature, named Acherontisuchus guajiraensis, inhabited an ancient rainforest ecosystem some 60 million years ago, during Palaeocene times.

The environment was dominated by reptiles, including giant snakes, turtles and crocodiles. This is the second crocodile relative excavated from the Cerrejon mine.

Temperatures at this time were much higher than today, and scientists say that studying the diversity of animals in this ecosystem could help them understand the impacts of a warmer climate in the future.

It lived alongside a giant snake known as Titanoboa, which is thought to have grown to about 13m (42ft) in length.

The scientists say that A. guajiraensis was specialised for eating fish, which means it probably would have competed for food with Titanoboa.

"The younger individuals were definitely not safe from Titanoboa, but the biggest of these species would have been a bit much for the [13m] 42-foot snake to handle," said lead author Alex Hastings, from the Florida Museum of Natural History.

The new species belongs to a group of crocs known as dyrosaurids, believed to be primarily ocean-dwelling, coastal reptiles.

The researchers say the new adult specimens challenge previous theories that the animals would only have entered freshwater environments as babies before returning to the sea.

The croc was comparable in size with the largest examples of living crocodiles and alligators today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14933629