{"id":16100,"date":"2016-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-hakamagwp.pantheonsite.io\/features\/crocodiles-rising"},"modified":"2020-08-27T10:55:04","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T17:55:04","slug":"crocodiles-rising","status":"publish","type":"custom_features","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/features\/crocodiles-rising\/","title":{"rendered":"Crocodiles Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Shanna Baker on winning a silver award for Best Feature Article: Long from the Digital Publishing Awards<\/a> for this article.<\/p>\n

A saltwater crocodile surges out of the gravy-colored Adelaide River like a malevolent jack-in-the-box, and with a percussive pop! <\/em>its spring-loaded jaws clamp onto a chunk of raw buffalo meat dangling from a line. A toddler on the boat\u2019s lower deck screams; the people around me suck in air. The crocodile thrashes its head back and forth, gulping down the meal, and then slowly recoils back under the surface, watching as the boat chugs on toward other hungry crocs.<\/p>\n

In 2014, on this same stretch of tidal river, where visitors to Darwin in Australia\u2019s Northern Territory (NT) come to watch wild saltwater crocodiles leap for lunch, a fisherman was killed.<\/p>\n

A local pointed out the spot as I was waiting for my boat trip. He hurried me down a ramp toward the dock. \u201cLook, there\u2019s one,\u201d he said. On cue, what looked like an old waterlogged chunk of wood floating at the water\u2019s edge resolved into an elongated head. Crocodile. \u201cThere\u2019s another one,\u201d he pointed near the end of the dock. \u201cAnd just over there,\u201d he said, indicating to the opposite muddy bank just upriver, \u201cthat\u2019s where the fisherman was taken.\u201d He shook his head. \u201cFor a $1.50 fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man, the coroner\u2019s report clarifies, had waded through the muck at the river\u2019s edge to release a snagged line. As he reached out with a stick, a saltwater crocodile chomped onto his arm. \u201cChet roi, troi oi!\u201d the man screamed in Vietnamese as he was pulled under the water\u2014\u201cOh my god, I am dead.\u201d His wife turned in time to see only the flick of the animal\u2019s tail. Later, the crocodile was found in a small channel, the man\u2019s hand and arm dangling from its mouth.<\/p>\n

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Using the strength of its powerful tail, a saltwater crocodile explodes out of the Adelaide River. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

Here in the NT\u2019s Top End, the tropical northern region wedged between the Timor Sea and the outback\u2019s dusty rangeland, horror-inducing stories about Crocodylus porosus <\/em>are in steady supply. Every Territorian, as the people of the NT call themselves, has a mental Rolodex of reported attacks and near misses to draw from. Protective measures followed by a carefully crafted management program have allowed saltwater crocodiles, or salties, in the region to rapidly rebound from near extinction to historical levels over the past 45 years, while giving people incentives to let that happen. Factoring in the farmed population, crocodiles now outnumber humans in the Top End. As many as 100,000 of these legendary predators rule the coastal wetlands. Territorians have done the unthinkable in modern times\u2014they\u2019ve ceded their coastal wilderness to the wild. Wild that can eat you. The strategy for maintaining the crocodile population is sound\u2014but there are cracks. Keeping the relative peace is a constant battle. Now, crocodiles are getting bolder, locals are demanding action, and those who care most about the future of crocs in the Top End hold their breath, wondering if there\u2019ll come a breaking point.<\/p>\n

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At Crocodylus Park, a hybrid zoo, crocodile farm, and research center with its own man-made river full of adult salties, Darwin\u2019s veteran crocodile researcher, Grahame Webb, sips a coffee and says, \u201cThe cold hard reality is you can swim with sharks and do all these death-defying acts. You can feed them with bloody fish in chain mail gloves\u2014well whoopee whoopee-do. You dive into a river here and start swimming and there\u2019s a 100 percent chance you\u2019ll be taken and killed by a crocodile.\u201d He leans back in his faux-crocodile-print chair (not even a croc farmer can justify the expense of the real deal) and re-emphasizes his point: \u201cNot a 50 percent chance\u2014100 percent.\u201d We\u2019re sitting across from each other at a table in a spacious room that he uses to host groups at Crocodylus Park. Over his left shoulder, in the glow of fluorescent lights, a table-length taxidermic croc is frozen on all fours, its jagged mouth wide open. On his right, there\u2019s a menagerie of stuffed African cats\u2014former exotic residents of the zoo. Webb knows crocodiles. He has worked with them extensively since arriving in the NT from Sydney in 1973, fresh from completing his PhD. He\u2019s also the chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature\u2019s crocodile specialist group and an adjunct professor at Charles Darwin University. And he doesn\u2019t believe there\u2019s any value in sugarcoating the dangers. It\u2019s better, he says, \u201cto let people know exactly what they\u2019re dealing with\u201d and give them sensible reasons to look after the animals.<\/p>\n

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Grahame Webb of Crocodylus Park has studied saltwater crocodiles for more than 40 years and witnessed their recovery. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

When Webb arrived in the Top End, it was difficult to find a saltwater crocodile. After the Second World War, overzealous hunters had blasted them for skins and didn\u2019t stop even after the supply had collapsed and they were teetering on the edge of extinction. By the time salties were protected in 1971, just three to five percent of the original population remained.<\/p>\n

Once salties began recovering, scientists and policymakers were faced with the next big obstacle: convincing people to keep them around. Persuading people to coexist with deadly predators over the long term, Webb asserts, is one of the world\u2019s greatest conservation challenges. It\u2019s easy to get people to rally around a predator when it has nearly vanished and become a romantic notion, but people are fickle: \u201cIf protection works in terms of increasing numbers, crocodiles eat more people, and then people want to get rid of them again,\u201d he says. That\u2019s what happened in 1979 and \u201980, when crocodiles killed two people and badly injured two others. During the same time, an old crocodile named Sweetheart began flipping tourist fishing boats. The 5.1-meter, 780-kilogram brute\u2014as long as a medium-sized dinosaur\u2014would wrestle with the boat as the panicked passengers swam to shore. Sweetheart had likely mistaken the sound of the motor for the growl of another crocodile, Webb says, but these incidents threatened to unravel the conservation efforts and topple the NT\u2019s nascent tourism industry. For people to willingly tolerate crocodiles, Webb reasons, they need to benefit from the situation\u2014it\u2019s not realistic to expect a community to conserve an animal out of appreciation for its intrinsic value alone.<\/p>\n

Inspired by similar programs in Zimbabwe and Louisiana, Webb and his colleagues crafted the NT\u2019s first formal incentive-driven management program in the early 1980s on behalf of the territorial government. It spawned what is now a multifaceted and far-reaching industry that works like this: people drop from helicopters and beat through the swamps to gather wild eggs\u2014roughly 52,000 a year\u2014which they sell to local crocodile farms. (In the wild, egg mortality, often caused by flooding, runs at 75 to 80 percent, and hatchling survival is density dependent, so collecting has no apparent impact on the wild population.) In turn, landowners receive a royalty from egg collection on their property\u2014most harvesting takes place in remote aboriginal communities\u2014which helps compensate them for livestock they lose to crocodiles and motivates them to retain habitat. Farms raise the hatchlings and sell their skins; rangers are employed to manage crocodiles in public areas; and independent permit holders make a living collecting animals from the wild, either for a farm\u2019s breeding program or for trade. It all amounts to an AU $25-million industry.<\/p>\n

Salties also play a significant role in the NT\u2019s $1.61-billion tourism industry\u2014the biggest employer in the region. Visitors pose for cheesy photos with hatchlings, dip into a croc\u2019s tank within a \u201ccage of death,\u201d watch feedings, take croc-spotting excursions, and shop boutiques and souvenir shops for coveted wallets and belts or kitschy beer cozies and hatbands.<\/p>\n

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Dyed crocodile-skin belts hang in a gift shop. Saltwater crocodile skin is the most valuable of any crocodile. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

It can be difficult for an animal lover to accept that sacrificing individual animals is good for the species overall, or to, say, look at a crocodile-skin handbag worth more than the average worker\u2019s annual income and wrestle with the idea that it actually supports rather than harms crocodiles at large. But the success of the sustainable-use program is undeniable. Scientists believe crocodiles have fully recovered and the system is at, or very close to, carrying capacity. Salties are showing up in spots researchers have never seen them before; some have even pushed a staggering 300 kilometers inland, into territory that was once the domain of the region\u2019s smaller and often-overlooked crocodile\u2014the freshie, or freshwater croc, which poses little danger to people and is less entwined in the economy and culture. Saltwater crocodiles are distributed from Sri Lanka and eastern India through most of coastal southeast Asia to Australia\u2019s Top End, but the Aussie population, which extends into neighboring Queensland and Western Australia, is a stronghold.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople understand that whether they like or dislike crocodiles is irrelevant,\u201d says Webb. \u201cThey are an important economic asset for the north. So we\u2019re winning. The people are winning because we\u2019ve created an environment where it\u2019s possible to forgive crocodiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

As crocodiles push their boundaries, so does the human population. Greater Darwin, with 57 percent of the NT\u2019s population, is one of the fastest growing capital cities in Australia. Attacks on people are still blessedly rare, but the danger is ever-present and will only increase as the two super-predators get pushed closer together.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, sweetie,\u201d the spiky-haired, gum-chewing taxi driver who dropped me off at Crocodylus Park said when I asked his opinion on crocodiles. \u201cAll I know is, I\u2019ve been here 10 or 12 years, and I can\u2019t go to the swimming holes I used to swim in. And these places are magical, just pristine<\/em>. People are losing out.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fat droplets of rain stain my notebook and ping off my forehead as senior wildlife ranger Tom Nichols opens the throttle and the aptly named boat Porosus<\/em> blasts across Darwin Harbour. Though crocodiles have the run of the Top End\u2019s river systems, they are unwelcome in the harbor, where the chance for conflict is too great. The five-person crocodile management unit of the NT\u2019s Parks and Wildlife Commission pulls as many as they can find out of the harbor each year\u2014usually between 250 and 300, most of them males an average of 2.4 meters long, though some as long as 4.9 meters. Today, Nichols and ranger Luke McLaren are checking and re-baiting 10 of the 26 metal or aluminum traps spread out at the sides of various creek systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaltwater crocodile\u201d is a bit of a misnomer, anyway. Crocodylus porosus <\/em>has special adaptations to tolerate salt water and uses the coast as a thoroughfare, but tends to occupy the tidal and freshwater rivers, swamps, and other wetlands of floodplains. Crocodiles found in the harbor have generally been pushed out by more dominant animals and are searching for a new place to live.<\/p>\n

As we close in on the third trap, anchored in a silty, mangrove-lined inlet, we can see the trapdoor is shut. The prisoner lifts its head as Nichols sidles the boat up to it. Occasionally, other boaters release trapped crocodiles before the management team can arrive, whether as an act of mischief or activism or empathy, Nichols isn\u2019t sure. \u201cThere are always some people who don\u2019t like what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he says with a shrug. (There seems to be only one consistent and vocal animal rights activist in Darwin, and she ignored my multiple attempts to connect with her.)<\/p>\n

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Luke McLaren, at the controls, and Tom Nichols travel around Darwin\u2019s harbor, checking and re-baiting crocodile traps, with one captive on board. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

McLaren steps onto the trap, opens the hatch, and chases the animal around for a few minutes, guiding it with a pole, until he can slip a lasso over its top jaw. Then Nichols cinches the croc\u2019s mouth shut with a zip tie. The two men pull it up through the top of the trap and, with the practiced precision of a couple of New York City hitmen, wrap duct tape around its snout and back legs, and place a wet cloth over its eyes to help calm it. Within a few minutes, the prisoner is lying on the boat\u2019s floor, its snout tied to a metal cleat. As McLaren re-baits the trap with a chunk of stinking feral pig, complete with blood, bones, and bristles, I run my fingers over the rigid scutes and armor of the crocodile\u2019s back and tail.<\/p>\n

Salties can get bigger closer to the equator, but in the Australian wild, the females average about 3 meters and 80 kilograms and males about 4.3 meters and 350 kilograms, but can exceed 5.5 meters. Occasionally, the captives are so big their tails hang off the end of Porosus<\/em>. Taped up and blindfolded, this one, just a foot longer than I\u2019d be if I lay beside it, is a sorry sight. \u201cHe\u2019s pretty small,\u201d I say to McLaren.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but he\u2019ll get bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Captured crocs aren\u2019t relocated in the wild because they have a strong homing instinct, so this will be a one-way trip to the farm. \u201cYou\u2019ll be a wallet some day,\u201d I murmur.<\/p>\n

Saltie skins are the most valuable of any crocodile. Designers favor the small scales of their bellies and use them in their highest-end products\u2014one luxury Herm\u00e8s handbag sold for a staggering US $200,000. Once the belly skin is spoken for, the ridged back straps become casual belts and hatbands, the feet become grisly key rings and backscratchers, teeth are turned into necklace pendants or other adornments, and skulls are sold as collectibles. A croc, or parts of it, can also be preserved through taxidermy. The meat is a byproduct, tough and tasteless\u2014as one reliable source puts it, \u201cCrocodile meat is shit\u201d\u2014yet there is an export market for it. Australia shipped roughly 80 tonnes of meat between 2011 and 2013, mostly to Canada, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the United States.<\/p>\n

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Visitors to Darwin can buy all sorts of crocodile souvenirs, from designer jewelry, bags, and belts to teeth pendants, beer cozies, and taxidermic animals. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

With the prisoner on board, McLaren takes the helm and continues the rounds. There\u2019s a liquid natural gas plant nearby and the city\u2019s waterfront is developed, yet the harbor is surprisingly wild, with 93 percent of its mangrove forest still intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where I lost my hand,\u201d Nichols says, as we pull into Sadgroves Creek past a cluster of liveaboard boats. Two fingers and a crescent-shaped chunk of the ranger\u2019s left hand are noticeably missing. He was retrieving a croc from a trap 13 years ago when the animal snapped onto his pinkie and ring finger and then corkscrewed its body, ripping them off. Nicols paused for a photograph with his fingers protruding from the crocodile\u2019s mouth before prying them out and driving himself to the nearest boat dock to meet an ambulance.<\/p>\n

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Members of the crocodile management unit of the NT\u2019s Parks and Wildlife Commission tape shut the snout of a small saltwater crocodile trapped in Darwin\u2019s harbor. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your best chance at surviving an attack?\u201d I ask, as we wait for McLaren to add fresh bait to the Sadgroves Creek trap and I try to appear nonchalant while I scan the water around us. \u201cIt depends where you\u2019re bitten. Poke them in the eyes if you can, but other times you just have to put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Darwin, the hub of the sparsely populated Northern Territory, is humble for a capital. Japanese forces annihilated it during the Second World War, and in 1974, Cyclone Tracy kicked it down again. A lot of the buildings are squat and boxy in classic \u201970s style. With its bright colors, esplanades, and baking heat, the city has the vibe of a beach town, despite the fact that the beautiful arcing beaches are mostly empty. William Saalfeld, senior scientist with the NT\u2019s Wildlife Use and Pest Animals section in the Department of Land Resource Management, points out that within the known range of Australian salties, which extends as far inland as Katherine, 300 kilometers from Darwin, \u201cthere\u2019s not a single water body\u2014not just a river\u2014not a single water body where you could say it\u2019s safe to enter the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crocodiles are only one deterrent for would-be ocean swimmers; there are also lethal jellyfish and tiger sharks. Some people dare to enter the ocean anyway outside of \u201cstinger\u201d season\u2014Darwin even has a waterski club, ironically with a croc on skis as its logo\u2014but most would rather not take the risk. \u201cThere\u2019s a saying up here,\u201d says Nichols. \u201c\u2018If it doesn\u2019t have tiles, don\u2019t swim in it.\u2019 But even then, you can get crocodiles in your pool.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s early December, the start of the wet season, and the days are swelteringly hot and humid. Every third SUV that drives by me has a snorkel\u2014a pipe raised up like an elephant\u2019s trunk to keep water out of the engine. The intense rains can quickly turn roads into wetlands. Some people even like to fish out the back of their vehicles as they slosh along. The main flock of tourists is long gone, leaving the city feeling underpopulated. The remaining visitors stroll Mitchell Street, the main drag, in flip-flops and sleeveless tops and mingle over pints of beer along a stretch of open-air pubs.<\/p>\n

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Mitchell Street is downtown Darwin\u2019s hub, where you can always find someone with a crocodile story to share. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

In this multicultural little city, Territorians like to describe themselves as laid-back, and many of them extend their easygoing attitude to their reptilian neighbors: \u201cThey were here before us,\u201d is a common refrain.<\/p>\n

But the relationship is more nuanced than that. Crocodiles have come to define the Top End. They\u2019re integral to the cultural identity and are as much a source of pride as a source of anxiety\u2014like being married to a race car driver, or keeping a pet wolf. Though Darwin isn\u2019t the wild frontier town it once was, Andrew Campbell, the director of the Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods at Charles Darwin University, who moved here five years ago, believes the old saying still applies: the Top End is for \u201cmissionaries, mercenaries, and misfits,\u201d a place where adventurers and antiestablishment types can dodge crowds and stifling rules hundreds of kilometers away from the country\u2019s corporate and political hubs. \u201cYou can do your own thing up here and a high level of eccentricity will be not just tolerated, but almost celebrated at times.\u201d In the sparsely populated and untamed region prone to apocalyptic weather, people have the sense they\u2019re living on the edge\u2014and wild roaming saltwater crocodiles fit nicely into that mystique. \u201cSo the movie Crocodile Dundee<\/em>, that\u2019s very much how people see themselves still, some of them,\u201d Campbell says. \u201cEven though they might live quite a comfortable suburban existence, in the back of their minds they\u2019re still Crocodile Dundee.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the aboriginal residents, who make up 27 percent of the NT\u2019s population, attitudes vary\u2014for some, crocodiles are totems or the embodiment of relatives, and others would prefer they disappeared.<\/p>\n

If anyone embodies the wild, eccentric frontiersman, it\u2019s Mick Pitman. The sinewy and scrappy 58-year-old who goes by \u201cCrocodile Mick\u201d is one of a handful of private operators who specializes in big \u201cproblem\u201d crocodile removal\u2014he and other Territorians with permits can collectively take up to 1,200 animals from the wild in a year. He\u2019s been hunting crocodiles for 37 years, since long before it was legal. He lived in the bush in Queensland for years and learned how to tan skins with bark tannins the traditional way. He still performs taxidermy on the animals he harvests, or tans and sews the skins into wallets and other items that he sells direct to customers.<\/p>\n

Pitman and his wife, Michaela Johnston, are outspoken advocates for crocodile safari hunting. They already bring guests out to the bush with them, but want permission for the client to be able to shoot and kill an animal. Safari hunting is a way of turning problem crocodiles into a greater commodity, with proceeds trickling back into the community, they reason. For a time, it looked like they might be allowed\u2014the NT government supported it, with rigorous restrictions, but the federal minister vetoed the idea.<\/p>\n

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Mick Pitman is one of a handful of independent crocodile-removal specialists in the Northern Territory and processes the animals he catches into products for sale. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

Pitman, who wears a croc tooth as long as a switchblade on a leather string\u2014from the crocodile that ate his dog\u2014and Johnston, with a sleek ponytail and a cascade of delicate gold chains around her neck, split a pack of cigarettes as we sit on their breezy veranda at an acreage on the outskirts of Darwin and explain their philosophies on hunting crocodiles. As side notes, they describe the many fights Pitman\u2019s been in, explaining that once he scalped a man with his elbows (\u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than fighting and crocodiles\u201d), his plans for the future (\u201cI\u2019ll be retiring when I fall off the bow into a croc\u2019s jaws\u201d), and how they ended up in the NT after a drawn-out dispute with the late Steve Irwin and his family that started over the name \u201cCrocodile Hunter.\u201d Then I follow them along a short path to a workshop and Pitman slides open the door. If crocodiles dream, their nightmares surely take place here. One animal is splayed out like a rug at my feet, another is frozen for eternity in a snarling, crawling position. On a worktable, Pitman has a defleshed skull and three heads all lined up, as big as boulders, in various stages of production. At his workstation are bins full of teeth and fake eyeballs. The freezer on the opposite wall is packed with hatchlings, stacked like bricks. These will be turned into \u201cstuffies\u201d and given away for charity or sold for ornaments.<\/p>\n

In some ways, Pitman is like a matador, stepping into an arena to battle against an outsize opponent. I\u2019m curious to know what a man who makes killing crocodiles his life\u2019s work feels about them. Deep-seated animosity that motivates him to wrest life from them? Indifference and an unsentimental sense of duty? A desire to conquer? \u201cI have affection for them. Oh yah, shit yah,\u201d he says. \u201cI hate to kill them.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the average Territorian, acceptance of salties is predicated on a flimsy belief that attacks happen because the victim made a fatal error of judgment. The majority of attack victims are local men, and alcohol is often involved. Webb also notes that attacks are increasing among aboriginal people. Many clans still live traditional lifestyles in remote places, yet today\u2019s elders grew up at a time when crocs were still depleted, so may not be teaching an appropriate level of caution.<\/p>\n

If the sense of control erodes, if more people start getting attacked without making an egregious mistake, tolerance could quickly dissipate. Examples are already out there. In 2014, a man was filling a bucket off the back of his boat in Kakadu National Park and passing it to someone on shore. The third time he went to fill it, a crocodile knocked into the boat\u2019s keel, rocking it. The man reached out to steady himself against the motor and the croc leapt up, grabbed him, and flicked him into the water. In an earlier incident, a man was sitting on a chair in his boat when a crocodile leapt up and knocked him onto the floor. Once, a croc tried to drag a woman out of a tent along the Daly River. \u201cThey are simply being opportunistic animals,\u201d explains Adam Britton, a zoologist who specializes in crocodiles and studies crocodile-human conflict. \u201cIf they\u2019re hungry and can position themselves where there\u2019s a good chance of feeding, they\u2019ll usually strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Zoologist Adam Britton is one of the founders of CrocBITE, a new online database of crocodile attacks. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

Salties can learn patterns quickly, and they\u2019re starting to catch on that fishing boats might equal free meal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very friendly,\u201d said a fisherman on the Adelaide River quoted in an article by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. \u201cEvery time I go fishing they come very close and I feed them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not the only one deliberately feeding crocodiles, and the animals no longer ignore small fishing boats like they used to. \u201cEvery time they do that, they\u2019re teaching the crocodiles it\u2019s a good idea to hang out around people and that emboldens them\u2014they become cheekier,\u201d says Britton. And that, he adds, is the development of \u201ca very dangerous situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a strange feeling to lock eyes with an animal that wants to eat you. As I shift to my left, the crocodile turns his gargantuan head ever so slightly to follow. As I inch back to the right, the head casually, almost imperceptibly, follows. I\u2019m floating close enough to see the red streaks of capillaries in the croc\u2019s eye, close enough to see the wear on its jagged fangs. A minnow swims past, barely an inch from one of the beast\u2019s yellow eyes, but his gaze holds steady on me. His massive body hangs motionless in the water, arcing down so I can see the full extent of his pale underbelly. When I first saw how big he was, a shiver coursed up my spine as if an invisible hand had plucked it like a guitar string. He\u2019s as long as a canoe, but a hell of a lot scarier. Without a metal grate separating us, I\u2019d be dead. I probably would have been dead as soon as I stepped backward off the ladder and into the pool.<\/p>\n

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Smaug, once a \u201cproblem crocodile,\u201d now lives in a constructed habitat on zoologist Adam Britton\u2019s property. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n

This particular crocodile is a movie star named Smaug. He regularly features in documentaries and has his own Facebook page<\/a>. Britton, his public relations manager\u2014and owner\u2014feeds Smaug and his mate, Esther, whole chickens or dingoes, buffalo legs, pig parts, wallabies, sometimes even road kill, every week, so he may not be hungry. But does that matter\u2014could he resist the primal urge to attack?<\/p>\n

Saltwater crocodiles have had 100 million years to perfect themselves into the ultimate semiaquatic stealth predator. Their killer instincts are so acute that sometimes, Nichols says, they\u2019ll rip apart a victim and not even eat it. They can hold their breath and remain motionless for up to an hour. Special sensory pits around their mouths help them detect motion and attack with precision\u2014a saltie can even snag a bird in flight. They can strike from a resting state in 1\/100th of a second, and their jaws are the most powerful of any animal ever measured.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n