Rangers shot dead a 4.3-metre-long crocodile after it killed a girl swimming in an Australian stream

By ROD McGUIRK

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Rangers shot and killed a 14-foot-long (4.2-meter-long) crocodile in northern Australia after it killed a 12-year-old girl swimming with her family last week, police said Wednesday.

The girl’s death was the first fatal crocodile attack in the Northern Territory since 2018, when an Indigenous woman was killed while collecting mussels in a river. The attack has reignited debate about whether more should be done to control the crocodile population in the Northern Territory, where the protected species is increasingly encroaching on the human population.

Since the girl was attacked last week in Mango Creek near Palumpa, an indigenous outback community in the Northern Territory, game rangers had been trying to capture or shoot the crocodile.

They shot the animal on Sunday after obtaining permission from the region’s traditional landowners. Saltwater crocodiles are considered a totem by many Australian Aborigines.

According to police, the analysis confirmed that the animal killed the girl.

“The events of the past week have had a tremendous impact on the family and local police continue to support all those affected,” said Sergeant Erica Gibson in the police statement.

Northern Territory crocodile researcher Grahame Webb said a reptile the size of the one shot would have to be male and at least 30 years old. Crocodiles grow throughout their lives and can live up to 70 years.

The girl’s death came just weeks after the Northern Territory adopted a ten-year plan to control the crocodile population, which will increase the culling rate near human habitation from 300 to 1,200 animals per year.

Following the latest death, the Northern Territory government said it would not allow crocodiles to outnumber people.

The Northern Territory has an area the size of France and Spain combined, but a population of only 250,000. The crocodile population is estimated at 100,000. The crocodile population was only 3,000 before hunting was banned by federal law in 1971.

Webb said the territory’s crocodiles have largely stabilized their population in recent years by killing each other to gain food or territory. “They eat each other. The crocodiles control their own population. It’s not really the people who control them,” Webb said.