Malcolm Douglas - Australia - Living With Crocodiles (Part 3) 1997

[Music] [Music] so [Music] during the dry season the many visitors to malcolm's park in broome are fascinated by the size and power of the big crocodiles on display at feeding time people line the fences as the tour guides explain the unique features of the world's biggest crocodiles the main purpose is public awareness and education for safety reasons on these tours the guides never enter the pens just like fishing really in it little girl for them barramundi yeah another croc here this is the one we brought in 15 months ago you remember he got him out of the um the very muddy pond up there at uh bluey's at cooler bar station and he's responded very well and we're now feeding him regularly about twice a week so i just dropped this truck in here any more than two or three dead chickens a week and he would be too fat it's now well into the dry season and the prevailing southeast winds churn up the murky waters of king sound at lageta malcolm has set a trap for a rogue crocodile in a nearby river it's too rough to launch the boat from the beach and motor to the estuary so he checks with the locals and they tell him how he can reach it overland across the mud flats and beyond the mangroves lies the river lighter four-wheeler bike toes the boat across the boggy clay pen [Music] on a high spring tide water flows across the flats and reaching the main river is easy [Music] malcolm's always on the lookout for signs of crocodile and with the tide now dropping quickly any fresh tracks in the mud are obvious [Music] this croc's very active regularly using the same mud bank to rest [Music] the tides low when they reach the trap [Music] the gate's down malcolm's in luck this is the other one they've been hunting it's not big but it's a wild cranky croc and capable of taking a dog or a child from the nearby beach that's good all right in the truck as soon as it's out of the trap malcolm checks at sex this one's a young male it's impossible to tell the sex of a crocodile from its external features until it's mature when a male is always much larger than a female the river level has dropped over 10 meters it'll be dark before the tide's full again and it's a really messy job loading the croc into the dinghy malcolm clears its nostrils so it can breathe easily the men have to motor back upstream to the spot where they launched the boat earlier [Music] a brahmany kite has taken the bait from one of their crab pots exposed by the dropping tide in these remote northern rivers mud crabs are plentiful and it takes only a few minutes to pick up a feed [Music] with a few hundred meters of rope connected to the bike the dinghy and crocodile are hauled from the river and towed across the flats to the toyota when the dinghy overturns the crocodile is promptly named [Music] rollover [Music] as it shrinks and dries the thick mud pulls the hairs out of malcolm's skin so it's a quick cleanup before the men head back to broome rollover soon settles in putting on weight and always looking for more food he's soon one of malcolm's favorites old santa and his partner are a perfect pair it will be another three months around october before they mate but she's never far from his side the freshwater crocodiles mate in the cooler months around july there's fierce rivalry between males and frenzied activity for several weeks as the dominant male warns the others away from the females another reptilian creature active during the dry season is the shinju matsuri pearl festival dragon it appears for one afternoon every year to lead the street parade [Music] the park has entered the competition as the kimberley crocodile catches [Music] the parade winds up on the town oval and everyone gathers to hear the judge's decision the broome crocodile park wins best commercial float for the year back at the park the work goes on a big croc has to be moved to another pin one of the continuing jobs at our crocodile farm here in broome is moving large animals around this one under the bush has been very ill when we caught it about nine months ago it'd have been bitten in the ribs and in the arm and the arm is all twisted up so i'm gonna i've had it in what we call the hospital pond this shallow pond and we've been treating it and it's starting to eat so what we want to do this morning is pick this large male up and put it in another pen this is going to be very tricky operation and this is something we have to do every three or four weeks when a croc opens its mouth in defiance the rope slips easily around its top jaw thank you now this front leg is what i've really been worried about when we caught this large marley been fighting and all this leg was falling up and the bone was badly broken it was starting to knit in the bush so nothing we could do about it now it looks pretty good now but it's all knitted around the wrong way but he's eating he's starting to put on condition again so what we'll do now is give him some more penicillin just check for any wounds and we're going to put him in with a female and hopefully this will be the last move for this crocodile until he dies and he'll probably live for another 30 or 40 years all right sam have you got that penicillin there please look at that just watch that head mate right back releasing a big crocodile is always dangerous and a special procedure is followed to free the croc and at the same time keep the handlers well clear of the jaws a croc that's been restrained for only a short time is often very active 20 kilometers inland malcolm's dream of a much larger crocodile farm is about to materialize now this is a very exciting moment for us just a few minutes ago the drilling rig has just struck water and we believe this is some of the finest drinking water in australia all yesterday he was drilling down to the sandstone it's around about 70 meters under the ground just at this moment he's just hit the water he's just putting compressed air down and this is our first bit of water on our new crocodile farm just coming out of the ground and i want to go and have it taste of it [Music] [Music] with a plentiful supply of water guaranteed the construction of a big breeding pond begins red sandy pin down soil is too porous to hold water so it's lined with sheets of plastic specially manufactured to cover such a large area [Music] the huge strips are joined with double-sided tape and covered with soil until the town power is connected a diesel generator is used to pump the water within weeks the lake's full and the banks are consolidated with trees and grasses a caretaker's cottage is brought out from town all the activity is disturbed at deadly king brown the flattening of the head and body shows that it's very angry and should be well left alone it strikes at great speed chewing to inject even more venom as the weeks pass the landscape changes and more ponds are excavated and filled the team begins the next stage of construction growing out pins for 2 000 young crocs shade cloth protects them from the extreme heat back in town there are pins full of crocodiles that all have to be caught and moved to the new farm these are two-year-olds in another year they'll be ready for harvesting the skin of the saltwater crocodile is the best in the world and fetches the highest price on the international market crocodile meat too is now in great demand in australia and overseas crocodiles are not the easiest animals to handle they're fast and they bite but a rubber band easily holds the jaws closed a diet of chicken heads is the perfect food at this age thank the lake's now well established and stocked with big crocs this four metre male looks relaxed as the release ropes are removed [Music] [Music] okay then as if to show who's really the boss he turns away from the water and menaces the men seeking refuge on the trailer [Music] [Music] a few minutes later he naturally heads for the lake and [Music] disappears to complete the stocking of the new farm malcolm and his team pack up the toyotas and trailers and head for the ord river a thousand kilometers from broome here are base camps established to collect a number of mature animals the department of conservation and land management has society's approved crocodile management program for the ord river and adjacent areas annual surveys of the river indicate how many crocodiles there are and when the population increases crocodile farmers are permitted to remove a limited number of the animals payment for this harvest subsidises the surveys the utilization of crocodiles ensures their survival encourages the development of a new industry and increases our knowledge of this key species only a few stretches of the river have grassy banks where traps can be set large crocodiles often lurk near these open spaces where cattle graze and go down to the water's edge to drink yeah that's it by sundown eight traps have been baited now it's a waiting game crocs usually enter the traps at night [Music] in the morning the gorillas are even more raucous than usual [Music] and this is why a very irate croc in one of the traps injured crocs or animals in poor condition often enter a trap for a feed this crocodile has curvature of the spine probably caused by the egg overheating when the embryo is developing surprisingly it didn't die as a hatchling but it's in poor shape and will be better off at the farm [Music] the gate's down on the next trap but there's no sign of a croc this is what happens quite often when a crop grows into a trap it just sits on the bottom and unless you look very closely you wouldn't realize there's a crop there there's about 11 foot crock just sitting in his trap just make sure he's all right see what i mean there's an 11 foot croc in that trap today well upstream towards the town of kanunara a big croc has been caught 4.5 meters long and in good condition it somehow turned around after the gate dropped shut large crocks barely move when they're trapped the superficial wounds on its head will soon heal once it's winched onto the trailer it's vital that a crocodile doesn't overheat if its body temperature rises above 35 degrees celsius it could die so in the hotter months crocodiles are always transported long distances at night malcolm and a co-driver will be in broome within 14 hours while the rest of the team stay on at the camp to monitor the traps hunchy with the spinal curvature receives his dose of penicillin and multivitamins as a safeguard against infection [Music] the bigger male is released into the lake at the new farm come on for malcolm there's an hour or two of relaxation before heading back to the ord the crocodile park is a caring centre for orphan euros wallabies and kangaroos [Music] brought in by travellers who found them on the road the little animals fill the house and backyard to overflowing [Music] [Music] um malcolm's favorite is sparkles a female red she was found on the edge of town almost dead only the sparkle in her eyes showed that she was alive now she's a picture of perfect help by nightfall it's time to hit the road again malcolm drives a thousand kilometers through the night back to the order it's now well into the dry season during the heat of the day cattle crowd near the water's edge mature crocodiles attack and kill horses and cattle wading into the river to drink when any of these big crocs move upstream they'll be a threat to tourists and locals using the river so these dangerous killers must be trapped and relocated to crocodile farms cunning old crocs like this one can take months or even years to catch now this is a crock that we've been after for a long long time he's simply huge i just can't believe how big he is he's a genuine five meter croc you can compare the size of his body to me and on the old scale i'm six foot four when i stand up he's just massive this is what we call one of the ord river cattle killers been taking cattle on this river for a long time and now i've got the responsibility of getting this croc onto the trailer and taking it back to broome and settling it in and hopefully you'll live a very happy life for the next 20 or 30 years as soon as i get him on the trailer i'll give him a big shot of valium and that'll settle him down for the trip i just want to cool him down come on that's the boy that's the boy you can just see the size of his head compared to my body just a magnificent animal the croc's so heavy it takes the team several hours in the intense heat to winch him onto the trailer [Music] yep there are stronger drugs but valium relaxes the animals well enough for the 14-hour drive to broom and then there's the revolting job of getting rid of the putrid rotten bait two days later he's back on the track along the ord the men in the camp have reported another huge croc in one of the traps regular surveys indicate that the ord has the biggest concentration of crocodiles in the kimberley well over 400 many of them are big animals growing fat on an abundant supply of prime kimberly beef [Music] [Music] but this one's in poor condition with great gashes and its flank from fighting a croc with such a massive head could take cattle from the riverbank with ease back in broome in the early hours of the morning the huge animals released into a new pond all goes to plan until the croc lunges at the filming lights and everyone heads for the hills the second croc to be unloaded is even bigger five meters long and very fat [Music] he's so big that malcolm's had to cut sections of the trap away he cannot believe that a croc this size even got into the metal cage the huge animal is still under the influence of valium and he's very sluggish his wounds have been treated with purple antiseptic spray so he's ready for release he's called subur short for submarine an hour later he slides off into the night suburb settles into the big lake and becomes very territorial but he savages one of the smaller males and it'll have to be removed when you have a lot of trouble catching a croc in a conventional metal trap and you can't go out at night with a spotlight and half turning because he's too too cunning we try a rope trap they sometimes go into a rope trap because it's more natural for them to walk on the rope so what we've done is dug a long trench here a five meter trench we've put a couple of wings up we've got a metal gate up the front here so now it's just a matter of setting this rope trap up and uh putting a bait in it and hopefully we'll get this croc three smelly chickens should attract the crocodile during the night and this is a crocs eye view of the bait in the morning the 3.7 meter croc that malcolm's been after is tangled in the net suburb would probably kill the younger male if it's not moved to another pond apart from the few wounds from fighting he's in good shape clusters of blood-sucking leeches are easily removed with rock salt stocking a crocodile farm is a slow process and malcolm's always keen to obtain more display animals the qantas airlink flight from sydney arrives in broome with eight alligators sent by malcolm's mate john weigel of the australian reptile park coming straight from sydney's cold winter to the warmer northern dry season the alligators will thrive unlike the saltwater and australian freshwater crocodiles young alligators are not at all aggressive [Music] first they suffer the indignity of having their sex determined and after a shower they're ready to face the tourists malcolm's great interest is public education and guided tours take up a lot of time in the warm dry winter over here more likely to pick on the females yeah now after months of cloudless days the spectacular monsoonal build-up begins again [Music] by christmas torrential rains soak the kimberley and malcolm stays close to home this 4.2 meter male attacked two horses and lunged to the young boy on the upper road near kananara trapped by government rangers the rogue is named mauler for the terrible injuries he inflicted on the horses with over 4 000 crocodiles on two sites cleaning out is an ongoing chore the rains have eased but it's hot and humid and the crocs are closely monitored for nesting activity breeding pears are fiercely territorial so it's a tense time keeping the animals away from the nest while the eggs are collected bluey one of the biggest crocs at the park defends his two females vigorously some females are very protective and only reluctantly abandon the nest when the males are agitated they're unpredictable even lashing out at the female in their frenzy mate savage the rag until it's torn to shreds in the early 1970s when crocodiles were protected in australia very little was known about these prehistoric reptiles in broome malcolm continues to observe and record the behaviour of these ferocious man-eaters do malcolm's been obsessed with crocodiles for over 40 years he first approached the northern territory government in 1969 with a plan to have crocodiles protected and to set up a research center in recent years much has been learnt about these extraordinary creatures but discovering all there is to know about crocodiles would take more than one lifetime crocodiles and more crocodiles they're not everybody's first love but i'm quite happy spending the next 20 or 30 years in broome living with crocodiles [Music] me [Music] you

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Length: 45min 11sec (2711 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020