Australia Pushes Trophy Hunting for Crocs

We’ve all heard the expression “when you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget the initial objective was to drain the swamp.” Things could be worse. You could be in Australia where instead of gators you have dense populations of the larger, more aggressive crocodile—and reports of increasing attacks on humans in national parks. According to Australia’s global news outlet Quartz.com, the most recent tragedy occurred on May 29 when Cindy Waldron and another woman went into the water at Thornton Beach at Daintree National Park. Waldron never returned—a victim of a crocodile attack.

The incident is spurring renewed calls for introducing crocodile hunting in national parks as a common-sense wildlife management tool in the name of public safety. Bob Katter, a member of the Australian House of Representatives who represents an area in North Queensland where the attack occurred, already tweeted his support of the move. (For reference, as noted by Quartz.com, Australia is south of the equator so northern areas are more tropical. Daintree National Park is much closer to Papua New Guinea than to Melbourne or Sydney.)

So while it’s easy to lose sight of one’s initial objective when you’re up to your neck in reptiles and caught up in subtasks, other Australian politicians soon may be set to follow Katter’s lead in embracing hunters as a valuable and necessary wildlife management tool.