Rangers shoot killer croc

Police in Australia said today they had killed a crocodile believed to have eaten a 22-year-old man and were and planning to cut the animal open to search for his remains.

Rangers shot the 12.5ft saltwater crocodile yesterday near where Brett Mann was snatched from a river on December 21. Searchers had spent the past week on dirt bikes and in helicopters sweeping the area for his body and the crocodile that took him. Torrential rain and floodwaters stalled the search for four days.

Police spokesman John McCourt said the 15-member search team had not yet retrieved the crocodile’s body. Wildlife experts in the search said that after a crocodile was shot it sank then floated to the surface a day or two later when its body bloated with gas.

Examining the crocodile’s insides would take a couple of hours, said Karen Elligett of the Northern Territory’s Parks and Wildlife Services.

“We are waiting for it to float to the surface and then we hope to ascertain if it is the croc that took Mr Mann,” McCourt said. “The primary reason for the search was the recovery of the body so the family can have closure and we remain committed to that.”

Mann was killed while swimming with two friends in the Finniss River, about 50 miles south of the territory capital, Darwin.

After killing Mann, the crocodile returned to stalk his two friends, who fled up a tree where they perched in terror for 22 hours until a police search team rescued them the following morning.

The estimated the creature was about 13ft long.

Searchers said the crocodile shot yesterday was probably the same one because crocs were territorial and more than one of such size would not inhabit the same area without a battle for supremacy.

Saltwater crocodiles are among the world’s largest reptiles, growing up to 23 feet. After killing prey, they normally wedge the body in rocks under water, returning to devour it in stages, McCourt said.

Saltwater crocodiles became a protected species in Australia in 1971 after they were nearly wiped out. But protection has led to a population surge and there are now an estimated 100,000 saltwater crocs, sparking calls for a reintroduction of limited hunting.