From the ABC:
Hungry, lost crocodile frightens NSW campers
Wildlife authorities are caring for a saltwater crocodile that terrorised campers at a caravan park in Pambula on the New South Wales far south coast last night.
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service says it cannot explain why the baby croc was thousands of kilometres away from the animal's usual habitat in northern Australia.
The Pambula camping ground was evacuated while snake handler Hans Rasker subdued the one-and-a-half metre reptile.
Mr Rasker says the crocodile was obviously hungry.
"When he had run out of fish and there were about a dozen people about, the crocodile thought 'I'm not being fed here any more, so I'm going to go,'" Mr Rasker said.
"He decided he was heading for the bush so we grabbed a volleyball net and tried to put that on him there until the authorities turned up."
"That didn't work [so we] ended up just lying on top of him and holding him down and we gaffer-taped his mouth and tied him up."
The crocodile was loaded on to a trailer and taken to a wildlife carer in Bega.
Police checks have revealed that there are no people licensed to keep crocodiles in the area.
UPDATE: Later reports state that the creature is in fact an alligator, probably from Florida and probably an escaped illegal pet.
Sounds like Florida. We have had sightings here of a large, black cat over the last few years, they say it's either a panther or leopard. Apparently when Hurricane Andrew struck Miami, it destroyed a number of warehouses in Miami. Some of these warehouses had illegal animals waiting for import or export. Since then there have been a number of these kinds of animals running loose. Ahhh..... what people will do for money!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! You think you've got your local wildlife sorted out and somebody comes and throws in a few large carnivores to spice life up!
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