SALTWATER crocodiles are on the march, and unwitting tourists are in their way.
Despite their name, Australia’s “salties” regularly travel up to 235 kilometres inland in freshwater streams, Mike Letnic of the University of Sydney has found during a survey of crocs in three rivers in the Northern Territory (Wildlife Research, vol 33, p 529). That should be a wake-up call to many tourist operators who still assume rivers are croc-free.
There have been numerous inland freshwater saltie sightings in the past decade, including one in Kakadu National Park in 2004 that closed a popular swimming hole. Now Letnic’s…
