Australia wrestles with crocodile safari hunting

[faze]

Date: May 24, 2004 - 05:48 AM
Friday, February 20, 2004
By Michelle Nichols, Reuters
DARWIN, Australia — With the unlikely name of Sweetheart, the 17-foot-long crocodile terrorized fishers in far north Australia for years, regularly capsizing motor boats because the noise annoyed him.


Now the stuffed body of the 1,690 pound reptile — who drowned in 1979 after becoming entangled by a sunken log — takes pride of place in Darwin's Museum and Art Gallery in the Northern Territory.

While Sweetheart's demise was accidental, a controversial proposal by the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory could see 25 saltwater crocodiles a year similarly immortalized as the trophies of professional safari hunters.

David Lawson, the Northern Territory's director of wildlife management, said for the past five years the commission has been able to issue permits to landowners for the wild harvest of up to 600 crocodiles a year. The 25 crocodiles available for safari hunters would be from that quota.


more here