Right: a boatload of tourists heads out into the Northern Territory's "Yellow Waters" to see and photograph crocodiles. This sort of tourism brings in many millions of dollars to northern Australia - and does it without harming the big reptiles.
 Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said. |
Background information
Recovery of Northern Territory saltwater crocodiles
Saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) in the Northern Territory of Australia were protected in 1971, after a severe population decline resulting from 26 years of intense commercial hunting. By that time wild saltwater crocodiles were rarely sighted anywhere and they were commercially extinct in areas where they had once been abundant.
Since being protected the wild population has expanded some 20 times in abundance and 100 times in biomass.
Current commercial uses
Commercial use based on both ranching (collecting and selling wild eggs), and limited direct wild harvesting, is biologically sustainable and allows landowners to benefit financially from the increasing number of crocodiles on their lands.
Crocodile farming, based largely on ranching (collecting and selling wild eggs), generates some $25 million per year in skin sales for the international high fashion industry and has extensive commercial flow-on effects in the community. Tourism, based on wild and captive crocodiles, is the mainstay of the "Top End" tourist industry.
Tourism is the second largest industry and biggest employer of people. National and international documentaries and media attention on the NT's successful crocodile management program is arguably the primary vehicle through which Top End tourism is promoted against competing destinations.
Safety program
A public education program ensures residents and visitors are well-informed about 'crocodile safety'. An active problem crocodile program is dedicated to trying to keep crocodiles extinct in Darwin Harbour, where most people live, and to removing individual crocodiles that cause problems in remote communities.