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Two enormous crocodiles have been caught and euthanized in the search for a missing Australian man after a suspected crocodile attack on Saturday afternoon in the far north of Queensland, officials said.
Publican Kevin Darmody, 65, is believed to have been fishing at Kennedy Bend in Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park, at the time of his disappearance.
"The missing man's friend, who was nearby, indicates the man was fishing on the banks of the Kennedy River when there were splashing noises and he disappeared," the Department of Environment and Science said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.
Emergency services were called to the Kennedy Bend camping ground on April 29 at approximately 3:30 p.m. local time and a search was commenced to find the missing man, Queensland police reported.
The two apex predators—measuring 13.5 feet and 9 feet respectively—were removed from the water on Monday night, upstream of where Darmody was reported to have been fishing.
The cause of Darmody's disappearance is still unclear, but Detective Acting Inspector Jason Chetham said that it was possible that he may have been dragged into the water by a crocodile.
"It's a national park and there are wild animals up there, wild crocodiles," he told local reporters Monday. "Obviously that's one of the possibilities."
Queensland's estuaries are home to roughly 20,000 to 30,000 crocodiles, the Queensland Government estimated in a recent report. Of those, around 20 percent can be found along a short stretch of the northeastern coastline, an area which includes Lakefield, where Darmody disappeared.
Crocodile attacks on humans are rare, with only four fatal attacks being reported in Queensland in the last decade, according to the Department of Environment and Science. However, the government has reported an increase in non-fatal attacks in recent years. As a result, there have been calls to cull the apex predators.
"They're moving into areas that we have never had them before, and every attack is a strong reminder of the lethal consequences of trying to share waterways with a prehistoric apex predator that sits at the top of the food chain," Traeger MP Robbie Katter said in a statement. "The fact that you can cull dogs, horses, cats, pigs and kangaroos but not man-eating crocodiles is the height of environmental madness."
However, conservationists have expressed concerns about the widespread culling of the species. Firstly, the removal of large males can cause social unrest among crocodile communities, causing other males to become more aggressive as they compete for social dominance.
"As we're only beginning to understand the social system of crocodiles, it is difficult to predict how the removal of a single large male crocodile will impact the remaining crocodiles in the area," Cameron Baker, a postdoctoral researcher at Australia's Charles Darwin University, told LiveScience.
Secondly, because crocodiles are apex predators, their removal can cause significant disruption further down the food chain, potentially altering the balance of estuary ecosystems.
The Queensland Department of Environment and Science actively monitors crocodile populations and sightings and may remove any animals that pose a significant threat to the local community.
Officials will be performing a necropsy on the captured crocodiles to search for any additional clues as to the nature of Darmody's disappearance. A report will be prepared by the coroner once the investigation is complete.
About the writer
Pandora Dewan is a Senior Science Reporter at Newsweek based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on science, health ... Read more