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MELBOURNE, Australia - Australia's Northern Territory on Wednesday rejected calls for a crocodile cull following recent fatal attacks but said big game hunters should be allowed to shoot a small number every year.
Three crocodile attacks in the past month that killed two people, including an 11-year-old girl, intensified demands that the population of huge reptiles should be reduced in what is known as the country's 'Top End.'
But the territory's environment minister, Alison Anderson, said a mass slaughter to cut the tropical territory's estimated 80,000 saltwater crocodiles would not stop the predators from killing.
'We live in a croc-infested territory,' she told reporters in the capital Darwin. 'We should not be under any illusion that any kind of consultation or management plan would have stopped any attack. They will kill today, they killed yesterday and they will kill tomorrow.'
Instead, Ms Anderson said the territory government was backing a proposal to allow trophy hunters to shoot about 25 saltwater crocodiles a year.
Under the scheme, hunters would pay premium rates to shoot a large crocodile measuring at least 3.5 metres, with the fees generating income for impoverished Aboriginal communities in remote areas.
Safari hunting would provide significant benefits to indigenous landholders who already host hunting of other animals such as pig and buffalo, the government said in a draft management programme released Wednesday.
A similar proposal for crocodile trophy hunting was rejected by the federal government in 2005.
An average of two people a year are killed in Australia by saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to seven metres long and weigh more than a tonne. -AFP
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