'You'll have crocs in the mall'

2005-10-04 13:47

Sydney - A Queensland crocodile hunter threatened on Tuesday to release a lorryload of the deadly reptiles in the centre of Brisbane to protest the federal government's refusal to ditch 30 years of protection and allow entrepreneurs like himself to organise big-game safaris for well-heeled tourists.

Mick Pitman said people in the far north of the continent were sick of crocodiles eating humans and livestock.

"It's time that this sugar-coating of these animals that eat people has got to stop," he told Australia's AAP news agency.

"If they don't do something with it, they'll end up with a truckload of crocs in the mall," Pitman said.

Pitman promised to "blow the crocs' heads off" if the Queensland authorities kept with their policy of shifting big crocodiles from populated areas in the south of the state to isolated areas in far-north Queensland.

A spokesperson for the state government said the ban on killing crocodiles was not going to come off.

"For the most part, people in croc country do the right thing, but the answer is to educate people about how to behave in croc habitat," the spokesperson said.

Pitman's ultimatum came in a week that saw a 10-year-old girl mauled by a crocodile while swimming off the Kimberley Coast, also in far-north Australia

Last week, crocodile attacks in Australia resulted in two deaths.

A 56-year-old diver was taken by a crocodile at Cape Don on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territory. His death came just days after a 4m crocodile took a British snorkeller on Groote Eylandt, also in the Northern Territory.

Crocodiles have been a protected species in Australia since being hunted to near-extinction in the 1970s. Their numbers have grown so rapidly in northern Australia that a campaign is under way to set an annual quota and allow trophy hunters to pay top-dollar to shoot them. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA