Crocodile hunt delayed by bad weather
Bad weather today forced in police in Australia to suspend their hunt for a saltwater crocodile and the body of a man it snatched and killed, officials said.
The 13ft reptile attacked 22-year-old Brett Mann on Sunday after he was swept away by a current while bathing in Finniss River, which cuts through a flooded tropical wilderness about 50 miles south west of Darwin in the Northern Territory.
Driving rain and flooding has made the area inaccessible for the boats, quad bikes and helicopters used in the search, Police Commander George Owen said.
“With the vast amounts of rain that have fallen in the Finniss River area, combined with unusually high tidal movement, we are unable at this stage to safely continue the search for Brett.”
Police will assess whether to resume the search “on a daily basis”, he said.
A police spokesman refused to speculate on whether authorities would kill the crocodile or take it into captivity if it is found.
After killing Mr Mann, the crocodile also lunged at two friends who were bathing with him, sending them scrambling up a tree in the swollen stream. It stalked them throughout the night. A police search party found them still in the tree 22 hours later.
Grahame Webb, a professor at Charles Darwin University and crocodile expert, said the reptile’s behaviour was quite natural.
“The key to understanding crocodiles is that they are a water-edge predator and very much an opportunistic predator,” he said.
“If there’s a couple guys in a tree in water and you’re living in the water ... it’s not a bad place to hang around, everything else being equal. It’s a matter of who’s going to give in first.”
