Post by ppyenews on Jul 15, 2006 19:54:32 GMT -5
Welcome to ‘Talkback Topic’ – I’m Phillip Pye
Have you ever thought what you may do if you were ever unfortunate enough to be standing by the waters edge, and next thing is, a roaring great Crocodile comes leaping out of the water at you. Have you ever thought what you may do if you were having a leisurely dip on a stinking hot day and next thing is a Crocodile grabs you by the Torso and starts pulling you under the water. Well in reality, you can’t do very much at all but it is a nightmare that has happened in Australia’s Top End and the result is usually death.
It happened just a few days ago in Arnhem Land when an eight year old girl went missing whilst fishing on the Blythe River with her family. If you look at the eating habits of Crocodiles it is a fact that they only need a small amount of food to grow and survive if compared to warm blooded animals. Animals the size of two dogs can feed an adult crocodile for a year. Crocodiles have the ability to cope with restricted food supplies which helps them survive for long periods stranded in small isolated waterholes during the dry season. A Crocodile’s stomach is only about the size of a basketball. This means that although they are capable of taking large prey, they are unable to eat it all at once.
To compensate for only having a small stomach Crocodiles perform what is known as a ‘Death Roll’ enabling the animal to tear small pieces of flesh off a larger carcass. It has been claimed that crocodiles prefer to hide their food under a submerged log or the likes until it is rotten however, while crocodiles apparently do tend to store carcasses under water or in mangroves it has also been suggested this may not be because they prefer rotting flesh but that rotten food may be better than no food at all. It has also been suggested that a rotten carcass attracts scavengers such as turtles and mud crabs which are fresh food to the Crocodile. The fact is however, that Crocodiles do not specifically target humans. We merely intrude on their territory and on occasions get taken for either food or as bait for food more liking to their true diet.
Licensed collectors have paid a fee to landholders to take crocodile eggs from the wild and raise the reptiles on farms for skins and meat. This came to fruition in the late 1970’s but crocodile numbers continue to grow, and recently the Northern Territory Government announced it wants to cull crocodiles for commercial benefit and because of fears for public safety. Large crocodiles now turn up regularly near popular beaches and around marinas where people fish and swim. In recent years, crocodiles have attacked boats leaving large tooth marks in thick aluminium hulls.
The proposed cull would see 1100 salt-water and 1200 fresh-water crocodiles taken each year, mainly from Aboriginal lands and would be used for meat and skin production. But the government also wants to open up an industry of crocodile safari hunting where hunters from anywhere in the world can come and shoot crocodiles for sport. The truth is though that mankind once again is dabbling in the control of a species that is better left to the auspices of ‘Mother Nature’. If one looks at the amount of damage done on land by domestic mammals all introduced by mankind for various food and control purposes, one would have thought a valuable lesson had already been learned, but it hasn’t. Cull them back to their former numbers and leave them alone.
I'm Phillip Pye.