Category Archives: Crocodiles

Teenager dies after suspected crocodile attack in the Torres Strait

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Body of 16-year-old boy discovered with injuries ‘consistent with a crocodile attack’ as wildlife officers search for animal

A teenager has died after a suspected crocodile attack off an island in the Torres Strait, police have confirmed.

Thursday Island water police launched a search and rescue operation near Saibai Island after receiving reports at about 4am on Thursday that a 16-year-old boy was missing.

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Queensland wildlife officers investigate after crocodile leaps into fisherman’s boat

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Fisherman who narrowly escaped attack north of Mackay said he had fished in the spot for decades but never seen a crocodile behave in that way

A report of a large crocodile leaping into a fisherman’s boat has triggered an investigation into possible threats to public safety and whether to relocate the animal.

A man was fishing from his tinnie at Jane Creek near St Helen’s Beach, north of Mackay, about 10am on December 31 when he saw a crocodile approaching the boat.

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Hunt for nearly 70 crocodiles that escaped during China floods

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Extreme weather in the city of Maoming in Guangdong province caused lake to flood, allowing dozens of crocodiles to escape

A Chinese city has launched an operation to find a large number of crocodiles that escaped when floods hit the region in recent days, authorities have said.

A typhoon brought sustained heavy rains to southern China last week, triggering inundations in Hong Kong and other areas.

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More decapitated crocodiles found in Queensland amid reports of body part black market

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Local Aboriginal land council says at least six crocodiles have been found shot dead in the past two months

Queensland wildlife officers are investigating the deaths and beheadings of several large crocodiles near the remote town of Normanton, in what appears to be a growing problem in the state.

Rangers from the Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation (CLAC) have reported six crocodiles shot in the past two months, with some of the dead carcasses missing their heads.

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Human remains found in euthanised crocodile believed to be missing Queensland fisher

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Kevin Darmody, 65, went missing while fishing on the Kennedy River on Saturday

The search for missing fisher Kevin Darmody has ended after human remains were discovered inside a crocodile found upstream from where he disappeared.

Crews had been trying to find the 65-year-old Laura man since Saturday after he disappeared while fishing along the Kennedy River at Rinyirru (Lakefield) national park on Saturday.

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What a crock: second Stradbroke Island crocodile sighting confirmed as dugong

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After hours of debate among locals, Queensland’s acting premier Steven Miles declared that rangers had spoken

Queensland’s acting premier has shut down speculation of a second crocodile sighting on North Stradbroke Island, also known as Minjerribah, revealing rangers had declared new footage taken on Friday as showing a dugong.

After reports of a “credible” crocodile sighting on Wednesday, 400km south of its usual habitat range, the island was again in a frenzy on Friday as residents swarmed to One Mile jetty to catch a glimpse of something moving through the water.

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Crocodile dies after chewing on electric wire after being ‘attracted’ to it

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The 10-year-old male Cuban crocodile at the Smithsonian zoo in Washington, DC, likely bit on electrical equipment in its enclosure

An endangered crocodile in a Smithsonian zoo in the US died after apparently biting into a live electrical cord in its shelter.

The Cuban crocodile, a 10-year-old male reptile, was discovered on 17 December inside its enclosure by staff at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI)’s Reptile Discovery Center in Washington, DC.

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Queensland proposal to remove more large crocodiles could raise risk of attacks, experts warn

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Almost 8,000 people have so far signed a petition against the proposal which has been described as a ‘silent cull’

Critics of a proposal to remove more large crocodiles from Queensland’s populated far north coast say the move will result in a “silent cull” and could actually put more people at risk of attack.

The Queensland government said crocodile numbers had been slowly rising and it was conducting modelling to see what impact taking more animals out of the wild would have on the species.

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Indonesia crocodile freed from tyre after five years

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Dozens of people drag 5.2-metre animal to shore and cut tyre from its neck after it was snared by bird-seller

A wild crocodile in Indonesia that was trapped in a tyre for more than five years has been rescued, freed from its rubber ring and released back into the wild.

Conservation workers have been trying to lure the stricken saltwater crocodile from a river since 2016, after residents of Palu city on Sulawesi island spotted the animal with a motorbike tyre wrapped around its neck.

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Queensland man uses pocket knife to fight off crocodile dragging him into river

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Cape York man, 60, was fishing on his property when the reptile clamped its jaws around his boots

A Queensland man has escaped the jaws of a crocodile by stabbing it in the head with a pocket knife as it dragged him into a river on Cape York.

Parks and Wildlife officers said the 60-year-old had been fishing on his property on the banks of a remote part of the McIvor River, near Hope Vale, last Wednesday.

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Briton tells how she beat crocodile on snout to save twin in Mexico lagoon

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Georgia Laurie gives interview about attack that left her sister Melissa recovering in hospital

A British woman has described beating a crocodile on its snout while it grabbed her other hand as she fought to save her twin sister from the reptile.

Georgia Laurie, 28, said she feared her sister, Melissa, was dead when she saw the crocodile drag her underwater after they went for a swim in a lagoon in Mexico.

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British woman in coma after twin fights off crocodile in Mexico

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Sister punched crocodile in head after it attacked in a lagoon where they had been swimming

A British woman is in a medically induced coma in Mexico after she was attacked by a crocodile in a lagoon where she and her twin sister had been taken by a tour guide.

Melissa and Georgia Laurie, 28, from Berkshire, had been swimming in the lagoon, about 10 miles from Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, on the south-east coast of the country, when Melissa was attacked.

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Australian officials hunt crocodile after human remains found near missing fisherman’s boat

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Department of Environment and Science says damage to boat indicates crocodile’s involvement ‘highly likely’

Human remains have been found during a search for a missing fisherman on a tropical Queensland island, as the hunt for a killer crocodile continues.

Related: King croc of Port Douglas dies after crab pot encounter

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‘Sit! sit!’ How one Australian dealt with a 4m crocodile called ‘Bonecruncher’

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Matt Wright – known as ‘the outback wrangler’ – came across the large reptile while clearing logs in a river path in the Northern Territory

For most people, the sight of an approaching crocodile, mouth wide open, would provide the fright of a life. And their fear would be rightly placed, as encounters between man and saltwater crocs typically have deathly ends for the former.

Not for Matt Wright, the so-called “outback wrangler”.

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Spanish police search river after sightings of Nile crocodile

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Residents of towns in Castilla y Léon region told to stay away from banks of Pisuerga River

Police and specialist wildlife officers are using boats and a drone to search a stretch of river in north-west Spain after three sightings of what is thought to be a Nile crocodile.

People in and around the towns of Simancas and Tordesillas in the Castilla y León region have been told to stay away from the banks of the Pisuerga River while the search continues.

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See you later, trotting alligators – many crocodiles can gallop

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Scientists believe galloping may have first emerged in crocs’ ancient cat-sized ancestors

Crocodiles have never had a friendly reputation, but they may just have become even scarier. Veterinary scientists have discovered that a surprising number of species are capable of galloping when they reach their top speeds.

Previously it was thought that only a couple of crocodile species were able to use this horse-like gait, but the latest observations show that the ability extends to eight different species. Alligators and caimans, by contrast, can manage only a trot.

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