NT: Should Australia cull its killer creatures?

AAP General News (Australia)
12-29-2005
NT: Should Australia cull its killer creatures?

By Karen Michelmore and Steve Larkin

DARWIN, AAP - Should Australia cull its crocodiles and sharks?

The federal government this year shot down a Northern Territory proposal for limited
trophy hunting of 25 saltwater crocodiles a year in a bid to help manage the region's
burgeoning croc population.

But questions linger after the man-eaters killed three people in Australia's top end in 2005.

A series of shark attacks down south also had beachgoers on edge.

Five people have been killed by sharks in the past five years off South Australia's
coast, but only in the past year has the danger struck in suburbia.

The last two SA victims were killed in separate attacks in waters off metropolitan
Adelaide beaches - the last at touristy Glenelg, the state's most popular beach.

Some politicians want a huge shark cage built and placed along the metropolitan coast,
centred on Glenelg.

Others, such as Jake Heron, a surfer who survived a shark attack near Port Lincoln
on SA's Eyre Peninsula in September, want them culled.

"It's the top of the food chain ... nothing affects it," Mr Heron said.

"The numbers are just going up, it's time they started controlling the numbers of sharks.

"They kill our national emblem out at Coffin Bay, kangaroos ... it's time to keep the
(shark) numbers down."

In the NT, meanwhile, it is the region's 75,000-strong croc population that have some
worried after two fatal attacks in the territory and one in Queensland in 2005.

The NT's crocodile management plan already allows the taking of 600 crocodiles a year
for farming, skin and flesh production, as well as the shooting of problem crocodiles.

The territory government wanted up to 25 of those 600 crocodiles to be taken by trophy
hunters, with their heads and skins exported.

But Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell rejected the plan, and said the crocodile-hunting
safaris were not the answer to preventing fatal attacks.

"I regard the decision as important, but I think anyone who links safari crocodile
hunting with stopping crocodile killings of humans is linking two issues that are not
necessarily linked," Senator Campbell said.

"What we have to understand is that we live in an ancient continent, where ancient
animals like crocodiles are abundant, and humans have to have enormous respect for sharks
and crocodiles, particularly when you are in their habitat.

"I think going out and shooting them for cash with foreign tourists is not what anyone
would regard as a sophisticated way of managing the population."

NT Environment Minister Marion Scrymgour has vowed to fight on in 2006.

"(This) wasn't about letting amateurs or cowboys go out there and willy nilly shoot
these crocodiles," she said.

"(Senator Campbell) talks about crocodiles being iconic - our coat of arms has kangaroos
... yet we allow millions of those kangaroos to be killed."

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