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2008/26: Should Australia cull its saltwater crocodiles?
Introduction to the media issue
Video clip at right: News report of a later crocodile fatality in the Northern Territory in early 2009. If you cannot see this clip, it will be because YouTube is blocked by your network. To view the clip, access from home or from a public library, or from another network which allows YouTube clips.
What they said...
'Nature is completely out of whack. Where we had no crocodiles at all now in these rivers, some of them will have 80 or 100'
Federal Parliamentarian, Mr Bob Katter
'Culling these animals would only lead to more danger as it would lead people into a false sense of security'
Professor Craig Franklin, a crocodile expert at the University of Queensland
The issue at a glance
On November 15, 2008, police confirmed that the human remains found in a 4.3-metre crocodile in far north Queensland were those of 62-year-old Arthur Booker.
Mr Booker, from Logan in Brisbane's south, was last seen heading to check crab pots on the Endeavour River near Cooktown on September 30. The Vietnam veteran and his wife Doris were on a two-day holiday at a campsite on the river.
A four-day search failed to find any sign of Mr Booker, other than two sandals and his wristwatch.
After an endoscope revealed Mr Booker's remains in the stomach of a crocodile, authorities decided that the animal responsible should not be destroyed or released back into the wild, but will be kept at an undisclosed crocodile farm.
Federal Parliamentarian, Bob Katter, has accused the government of treating crocodiles too leniently. Mr Katter has declared that the crocodile population is exploding and that crocodiles that harm or kill human beings or are suspected of doing so should be shot. Other Queensland politicians have also supported Mr Katter's call for a crocodile cull.
Conservationists and others have condemned Mr Katter's remarks as ill-informed and inappropriate.
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