The Misnomer

I have a knack for choosing really shit titles for my blogs. My little trip through Asia, I called the “Leopard’s Tale” even though I saw not one wild leopard and the majority of the trip was actually spent in the back of a Tibetan supply truck (or squatting over a Tibetan dunny).

I thought “Aztec Gold” would be a catchy title for my South American blog and it was only months after setting off that I discovered that the Aztecs were found up around Central America, in places like Mexico, and were never anywhere near where I was hanging out.

It should be no surprise to anybody then that my adventure around Australia the great journey “Into the Never Never”, saw me travel only as far as Cairns and is now coming to a close without me ever coming near the true Never Never of the Northern Territory. It’s been over six months since I set out from Sydney and I have barely scratched the surface of Australia. A chance to catch crocodiles is not something most people get to do however and it was definitely not one I could pass up.

I’m lucky enough to have both family and friends living normal lives back in Sydney, and it is Christmas once again. All this traveling can wear you out and I’m clearly due a holiday as I’m sure you will all agree. It’s time to say goodbye to the Jackaroo and hang up my swag for a little while at least.

I can’t lounge around forever mind you. I will have to get out and into it all again when the new-year rolls around. Maybe I’ll return here for some more crocodile work and to help them setup an animal hospital in Cairns (there’s even talk of paying me for my conservation work, which would be a novel experience).

I will have to see the rest of Australia at some point however; the West Coast, the true Outback and the forests of Tasmania are just some of the wonders yet to be explored. There are a few countries out there I’ve not yet burdened with my presence too, and both Alaska and Africa have been high on the list for a while now.

For now however, it's time to stop and enjoy a Christmas the way it should be: on the beach, getting sunburnt, with a beer in one hand and a cricket bat in the other.

Fisherman’s Friend

There’s a fish species invading the inland waters of Australia like a plague. Tilapia, an African freshwater fish, is moving in and the sensitive native fish are quickly being out competed. Tilapia is a controversial little fish, since it is an excellent fish for eating: protein-rich, a rapid breeder and apparently quite tasty. It has been introduced to Australia for this very reason. The drawback however is that it overtakes most native species, often wiping them out completely. These traits have earned it the dubious title of the ‘rabbit of the river’.

Here in far north Queensland Tilapia has just started to move in and since it has the media's attention (the bad news always sells better than the good) there is a flurry of government driven activity to try and do something about it. Since the Wetlands is part of the headwaters of the Mitchell River, the largest river in Queensland (when it flows anyway), it is only a matter time before the Fisheries Department turns up on our doorstep.

They’re here to survey our lagoons for Tilapia and being the curious person that I am I offer to tag along and give them a hand. On the drive out to the lagoons I wonder how they intend to ‘survey’ the fish. A short questionnaire perhaps, which each fish has to fill out and return? Or maybe a one-on-one interview, anonymous of course, where native fish can dob in Tilapia living incognito in their communities?

I soon discover that their preferred technique is nothing so subtle. We’re using “electro-fishing”. The two guys from Fisheries have a custom built boat, rigged up with a high-voltage generator. Two long poles reach forward off the front of the boat and from these several wires dangle into the water. As we move around each lagoon, the captain fires up the generator, pumping a 1000 volt charge into the water. This forms a kind of electric net several meters in front of the boat and fish caught in this are stunned for a few seconds and can then be scooped onto the boat via a net. This is my kind of fishing!

I’m handed a pair of gumboots, thick rubber gloves and a pole-net and then I’m sent to the front of the boat for “catch duty”. The boat’s rigged for safety, with rubber coated railings and carpeted floors. We also have foot pedals that we have to keep pressure on for the electricity to flow. Should one of us fall in, the pedal would then be released, and the voltage would (hopefully) stop. It’s a cool little toy.

It’s an odd spectacle: fish get caught in the electric field then dart briefly around in a circle, like a dog chasing its tail, before drifting up to the surface, comatose where we reach down with our nets and quickly scoop them into a waiting bucket of water. We pull out fish of all shapes and sizes, from tiny native catfish to sooty grunters and, the catch of the day, one well-sized northern Saratoga. In the shallows, crayfish dart away in a panic but none are stunned.

The end result is a bucket full of mismatched fish and we go through each, taking measurements. We find no Tilapia and in fact, we find no pest species what-so-ever. The Wetlands is given an excellent bill of health as far as the fish and water quality is concerned. Heartened by this news I ask the Fisheries guys what measures we should take to keep Tilapia out. Perhaps some nets across the channels or traps that are regularly checked, providing us with early warning and allowing us to shut the channels and prevent further spread while we clean up?

I’m told there’s nothing that can be done to stop the spread. Add to this that there’s nothing that can be done to remove the fish once they’re in and it doesn’t look like there’s many options available to us. Perhaps I'm getting cynical but I do wonder whether it's worth spending wads of cash zapping hapless fish when there’s nothing that can actually be done with the resulting knowledge. I reckon I could think of a few more worthy causes to put that cash towards. Still we all had a good day out fishing and that’s the important thing.

The Catch

After a couple of months coordinating the crocodile project, I begin to think that Murphy must have developed his well known Law while trying to run a conservation project in far north Queensland. Not only does everything go wrong that can go wrong but a few things that couldn’t possibly go wrong, go wrong as well.

On my first planned capture expedition my vet falls sick and the whole event has to be cancelled; my contact from Queensland Parks and Wildlife has disappeared on long-service-leave, resulting in an obstacle course of red tape to get my permit sorted; my mobile phone takes a swim in the lagoon, leaving me largely uncontactable at critical moments; and the mighty Jackaroo starts a weekly trend of breaking down at the most inopportune of moments.

I am in fact on the verge of admitting defeat when a few faint rays of light push through the clouds. Just as my permit issues are finally sorted, a bloke from Parks and Wildlife becomes available to join a capture run and my vet is suddenly fighting fit once again.

To top things off, the local Holden dealer in Mareeba manages to plug the fuel leak in the Jackaroo (a job three mechanics in Cairns have previously charged me several hundred dollars to fail to do). In the space of four days, I go from almost cancelling the project to standing waste deep in a murky billabong, gingerly unsnagging a net from a rock while an entangled, angry crocodile twists and thrashes in front of me.

The capture site is on a remote cattle station called Karma Waters, found downstream of the Mareeba Wetlands along the mighty Mitchell River. The owners, down-to-earth country folk, are friends of the Mareeba Wetlands and kindly let us use their property. I suspect however, that there is a fair amount of head shaking, when they see us city-slickers coming to splash about and make a fuss over a couple of little freshwater crocodiles. They’re too polite to make comment however, and they leave us to our foolery while they carry on with the real work of herding cattle, mending fences and patching roads before the onset of the Wet.

The only road into Karma Waters is dirt for 50kms and there’s no local supermarket to duck down to and grab supplies from. The capture expedition is a three day event, with tents and swags and campfire cooking. As well as the two Wardens from the Mareeba Wetlands, I manage to recruit two volunteers for the expedition.

My two volunteers are mates travelling together: Jon is a Londoner and a labourer by trade with the tattoos to prove it; Glen is a solid Maori bloke and easily mistaken for a building with legs. Glen eats everything in sight and within the first few hours at the camp he’s devoured half our rations for the trip. I end up giving him a box of cornflakes to eat from just to stop him polishing off the rest of our supplies.

Our first day is spent making camp and scouting out the local area. It’s a picturesque location, with a fresh, flowing river meandering its way through a sandy riverbed beneath the shade of some low-hanging paper-bark trees. Driftwood however, caught high in the branches of some trees, gives a telltale sign of the anger this river is capable of in the Wet.

The freshies are elusive and incredibly shy but I do catch a glimpse of one scuttling into the river at our approach. We hear plenty more drop from the banks into the safe, dark depths of the river. At night, spotlighting reveals numerous sets of eyes reflecting back at us with a dull red flame, like the eyes of small sinister devils sliding slowly through pools of blackness. Few humans visit the area and the freshies hold dominance over all but the abundant cane toads. Cane toads answer to no higher force.

Our vet and Brian, the Parks and Wildlife bloke, join the team early on the second day and after they arrive we head out with the capture gear. Unfortunately the water levels in the river are too high to allow for any practical or safe netting to be carried out. The two cyclones earlier in the year and the continued patchy rain have seen to that. With the river too high to be worked, we’re left only with the nearby billabongs to catch our crocs from.

We stroll out to the billabongs, lugging heavy nets and medical supplies for both humans and crocodiles. On the way Brian provides us with useful information about crocodiles and how we will be catching and transporting them. Glen however, is only interested in finding out whether Brian has ever eaten any and what they taste like. The two Wardens, bird watchers to the core, are constantly distracted by birds ducking past and Glen is equally interested in how each of these would taste too.

We reach the first waterhole. It’s fairly small, only ten meters wide and around thirty meters long. We stretch the net across one bank and then two people on each end drag the net in a U-shape towards the far shore. It’s an effective technique but it does have one drawback: the net constantly catches against any snags in the billabong. So this is the job allocated to my volunteers, the Wardens and myself. We enter the water behind the net and anytime it snags we have to reach down into the murky water and unsnag it.

About halfway through the drag the floats go under and something large wraps itself up in the net. The occasional scaled limb lifting out of the water confirms that it’s a croc; a big one. We continue quickly to the shore and as we move, a few more animals hit the net. Our unsnagging becomes a little more careful as there’s no telling what’s in the net in front of us as we reach down to unhook the net from whatever rock or log it’s caught on.

With the net up the shore we check our catch. We have two crocs and a handful of turtles. We quickly disentangle the turtles and release them back into the waterway. We then turn to our crocs. We tape their jaws shut using duct tape and blindfold them as well to reduce stress. Once secured, we then weigh the crocs and measure the bits that need measuring.

I get a very hands-on lesson on how to sex a crocodile. These guys keep their private bits on the inside and you can’t just lift up the tail and check for the family jewels in order to tell if you have a boy or a girl. Instead you need to slide your finger up into the cloacal (the entry point to it all) and have a bit of a fiddle. If you find any bits up there then you have a boy, if not you’ve got yourself a lady.

We have one of each. Our female is large, 1.6m, and definitely of breeding age. Our male however is barely a teenager and at 1.1m, won’t be up for the job of servicing females for some time yet. At least he has something to look forward to however.

We secure our crocs in a shady location, splash some water on them to keep them cool and then continue working our waterholes. The next few waterholes are too snaggy to use the same approach so this time we string the net across the middle of them and then we all get in the water and walk in a line towards the net, splashing and making as much noise as we can.

The approach is slightly less affective but still results in the capture of another 1.4m female (and several more turtles). We work the remainder of our waterholes but call it a day with our three crocs. It’s a long walk back to base camp and we take turns lugging the 20kg female. Back at camp we secure our crocs for the night and settle in for dinner (what food Glen hasn’t yet eaten anyway) around the fire.

Anxious not to stress our crocodiles any more than necessary, we pack up camp at first light and head back to the Mareeba Wetlands. All three crocs travel in the back of the Jackaroo, secured to the inside of the car like dogs on a lead. I almost hope for a copper to pull me up just to see his reaction to the scene.

Once back at the Wetlands, our vet decides that the crocs we’ve caught are too large for the enclosure I’ve built so we put them directly into the water instead. One by one we remove their blindfolds and then their mouth ties and leave them to slither into the water. The larger female takes her time to move off, keeping a watchful eye on these nasty humans to see what other tricks we have planned for her. Eventually she moves out into the depths of the water to her new home.

Three crocodiles is a long way short of my target of forty but it’s a start. The rainy season is about to kick in here and the water levels are only going to get higher. Perhaps I’ll come back next year and, barring more cyclones, catch a few more for the Wetlands. Given that I’ve spent over a month now shifting sand to make a beach for my crocodiles, I’ll have to catch a few more crocs just to make it all worth my while.

Enclosure

The crocs are going to be a little pissed off when they arrive. If you were happily sitting out the front of your house one day, minding your own business and then suddenly some bastard throws a net over you, ties you up, gives you a little grope to see whether you’re male or female, blindfolds you, and then drags you to some place you’ve never been before and lets you go, well you’d probably be a little pissed off too.

Ideally we’d like our crocs to stay around, hopefully have a little romance and, all things going well, pop out a few kids. If we chuck them straight in the water after their capture ordeal, chances are they’ll take the first exit they come across and will disappear back down the river in no time.

To (hopefully) stop this we’re going to ease them into their new home by putting them in an enclosure for a week or two after we bring them to the wetlands (add ‘forced imprisonment’ to our charges of ‘kidnapping’). This will give them a chance to calm down and will allow them to familiarize themselves with the area. It also gives us a chance to keep an eye on them for a while so we can make sure they’re fit and well after their move.

Obviously this means I need to build a temporary enclosure to put them in. After my stint in Ecuador at the Santa Martha Animal Rehab Center, I’ve got a little experience in knocking up makeshift, low budget (i.e. dodgy) animal pens. I go through a few designs on paper. The crocs need water, enough that they can submerge; they need direct sunlight to warm themselves and they need shelter from the wind and the sun. They can’t really jump over fences of any reasonably height but they can dig under them.

I get my volunteer labour force cracking. While a few of them wire mesh together and rig up supports I set to work preparing a site. I find a spot where the bank isn’t too steep on the shore but drops fairly quickly once underwater. This gives the crocs enough water to play in while still allowing them to easily slide in and out of the water. Unfortunately the bank is covered in waist-high weeds and the shallows are choked with reeds. These have to go.

I have a crack at the weeds with the whipper snipper but the thicket proves to be too much for it. I dig out a rusty old cane knife from the back of the tool shed and using my machete skills from Ecuador manage to clear out the bulk of the weeds after a few hours work. You just can’t beat a good, old-fashioned machete for getting the job done.

The reeds in the water prove a little more difficult however. For these I have to get into the water and dig out the roots with a shovel. My volunteers make a token effort to get into the murky water but none are keen to go in much past their ankles. I’m on my own for this one.

I’m waste deep in the water when I begin to feel things wriggling against my legs. It’s not a pleasant sensation. Lifting my legs reveal hideous, alien-looking, black worms wriggling against my skin: leaches. I swipe them away quickly and carry on but I can’t go more than a few minutes without a fresh swarm homing in. Eventually one gets me and it’s a monster, as long as my finger and twice as fat. There’s nothing pretty about it either.

You hear people talk about burning leaches off with a cigarette lighter or pouring salt over them so they’ll drop off. I’m sure these are all highly affective techniques but I’d like to see you bother with either of these when you’re waste deep in water with a giant, black, slimy leach stuck to your leg, sucking blood out by the litre.

I grab hold of the little bastard, rip him off and peg him as far as I can. It’s all done in one swift, instinctive movement; the brain has no say in the matter whatsoever. When the brain does finally kick in, it has no complaints (in fact it’s quite complementary of the distance the thing flew) and simply adds the hopeful thought that something will eat the evil little bastard before it gets back to the safety of the reeds.

The bleeding doesn’t stop of course; not for days. I finish ripping out the weeds as quickly as I can (the volunteers, reluctant before, are now not going anywhere near the water). The job is finally done and we put up the fencing, furnish the cage with a little sand and even decorate it with some nice logs. I can only hope my blood has washed away before we get any crocs in there developing a taste for it.

Sleeping With the Enemy

For the last few weeks I've been sleeping in a tent on my own, near a small lagoon in an isolated area at the back of the reserve and cooking my meals over a camp fire. The reasons why are long, complicated, slightly nonsensical and not at all interesting. Let’s just accept the fact that I have been and move on.

After a couple of weeks of this bush living, it was time for me to move back into the main accommodation area. I packed up my camp and cleared out my tent. In doing so I discovered a squashed snake under my foam mattress. Obviously he’d snuck in one day while I was out and then I'd come home, jumped into bed and must have squashed the poor fella underneath.

Judging by the smell he'd been dead a fair while. I'd actually noticed the smell a few days before but had assumed it was just my own poor personal hygiene that was the cause and had made a mental note to wash more often. In fairness, the mattress was masking the worst of the stench and it was only when I removed it that the full force of the odor was released.

I have no idea what type of snake it was and the fact that I'd flattened the thing's head made it difficult for the wardens to work it out too. I can only assume it wasn’t poisonous since it didn’t bite me but maybe I unknowingly pinned it with my body weight before it had a chance to have a go. Either way, I now check my bed a little more thoroughly each night.

Slave Labour

A trial run with my now completed raft works well but leaves me with no doubt about just how much work I have in front on me. At best the raft can take about two-thirds of a cubic meter of sand in one load. This is roughly as expected but with 40+ cubic meters of sand to move, I'm looking at about 60 loads. For my trial run I have only one other volunteer, a slender (and quite attractive) Dutch girl and it takes us nearly an hour to do one run. At this rate I'm looking at about 60 hours of hard, manual labour. Had I gym membership, I'd have cancelled it, quick smart.

Clearly the solution is to get more workers. A quick check of the available funds (zero) rules out any plans of hiring anyone. We have at most four volunteers at any given time and it's now past peak tourist season so even less are coming through. Even the cute Dutch girl is heading back to Denmark (despite my continual efforts to convince her to stay). I need another solution.

Providence provides. It just so happens that a group of 20 school kids, all around 15 years of age, are on their way up for a day of weeding as part of their 'education' (although I applaud this dedication to Australian bush, a cynical part of me can't help but wonder if maybe the teachers just wanted a free holiday). We chat to them and everyone agrees that a leisurely day working on a sand bank for crocodiles beats a day of hard yakka, chopping trees and poisoning grasses (fools!).

Eventually the day arrives and I give my slaves, err … volunteers a heartwarming and inspiring story about the reserve, the wonders of nature, balanced ecosystems and crocodiles and their beach sports. Enthused, they rush out into the morning heat with a shovel each and a couple of wheelbarrows shared amongst them. They dig in and joyfully fling sand everywhere, occasionally getting some of it into the waiting barrows which they then roll onto the raft and unload. It's a flurry of activity and positive energy, and it lasts for all of fifteen minutes.

They quickly realize that shoveling sand for hours on end in direct sunlight is not the joyous experience I made it out to be, even if there is a raft to play with and some vague mention of crocodiles. The group splits into two: the diligent and the lazy. This division is a universal feature of the human race and happens in all work places in all corners of the globe. A couple of the group are solid workers and they settle into an easy pattern, loading and unloading sand. They even seem to enjoy themselves.

One guy in particular excels. He’s a small, wiry kid but he's got a fair bit of strength to him. He also knows which end of the shovel is which, and even more impressively, knows how to fill and drive a wheelbarrow. I get the feeling that he doesn't get much of a chance to shine in the classroom and he's relishing the opportunity to finally be good at something. Whatever the reasons, I'm not complaining; my sand is moving.

By the end of the day we’re all wet, sandy and tired. There's been a few bandaids distributed as well (although some were used more for their placebo affect than for any real need). The raft has held but it now has an unhealthy looking bend to it and a few of the joints are not quite as solid looking as they were earlier in the day. Just under half of the sand has been moved. There's still a decent chunk to go but I'm now looking at a far more manageable pile to deal with.

The kids head home, generally feeling good about their day's labour. The next part of their trip is an expedition out to the barrier reef however. I suspect that for most this reef trip may rank higher on there score card than my forced labour but you never know.

Tough Love

Working in conservation is not all about cuddling koalas and playing with kangaroos. Sometimes to get the job done, you have to get a little nasty; you have to be a little heartless and unkind.

Pigs are one of the worst animal pests we have on the reserve (competing with cane toads for the title). They eat anything and everything; they stomp about in the mud, digging through plants with their snorts and grunts, trying to find frogs, grubs, crustaceans and anything else edible or close to edible. Their fat little hooves rip up the ground everywhere they go and they travel in herds of 10 or 20, leaving havoc and mayhem in their wake.

Pigs are recent occupants, like us white fellas. The first ones snuck ashore with Captain Cook when he crashed his ride up near Cairns around 1770 (although there's now some speculation that earlier Asian visitors might have brought some through first). And just like us white fellas they've thrived here, out-competing just about everything and throwing out the balance that keeps the whole engine ticking over. The Aussie landscape has no effective defense mechanism against this invader.

Shooting doesn't really work; it's more of a last resort. Pigs might be ugly but they’re not dumb. Fire a shot into a herd and you'll most likely take one out, but before the smoke’s cleared the rest will have scattered into the bush. Next time those pigs hear you coming, they'll start to move a little earlier and you might not get so lucky with your first shot.

By the time you've taken out a few, those pigs will know that the sound of an approaching 4x4 is not the happy jingle of an ice cream van come to delight the kids. They'll be gone before you come over that last gulley. In the end you're left with a herd of super pigs, as skilled in the art of subterfuge and camouflage as a team of crack SAS troops. It is simple Darwin evolution in a species that has proven be particularly good at that game.

Dogs can be used to fine tune this process but dogs aren't real particular when it comes to hunting. To be fair, it's probably more the case that the type of hunters that you get out bush, that use dogs and think a Sunday night pig shooting is a good way to spend time, are the ones who are not too particular rather than their dogs. We're not overly keen on wiping out the local population of super rare Buff-breasted Button-quail just to get rid of a few pigs.

So this leaves the traps. These are large fenced off areas where the trapper throws old scraps. He leaves these traps open for a while to let the pigs get used to them and then when they are coming and going, he rigs the door to drop shut. Since the pigs travel around in herds the traps should close on a big group at a time and these can all be 'disposed of' in one hit.

Our traps have had a little success but the reserve is still overrun by pigs. We see them often, sometimes the little bastards are arrogant enough to go rummaging just outside the visitor centre at night.

It was late last night when I was driving through the reserve to get to my campsite. I rounded a corner and there in my headlights were three piglets, trotting down the path. In that moment I was judge, jury and executioner. The verdict was passed and the accused was found guilty of crimes against the balance of nature.

I put my foot to the floor; the Jackaroo roared forward. Two piglets scattered but the third was caught in my path. It was a quick end, no worries about that. Had I been in a smaller car I would have had doubts about a clean kill and would have pulled back. When my Jackaroo hits something however, there's little left behind.

So there it is; the confession of a cold-blooded, remorseless murderer. Though it may tarnish the misguided perception some may have of me as a tree-hugging animal-lover, this is the real world. We are earth's gardeners; to make the garden grow you have to kill the weeds.

And I've no doubt, that should we not manage to restore the balance we've damaged by our own undertakings, then just as it did with the piglet, nature will send bigger gardeners to deal with the little weeds called humans too.

Maiden Voyage

My sandbank needs to be around twenty meters long, five meters wide and 30 to 40 centimeters deep. That's about 40 cubic meters of sand to move, which is no small task. It takes five dump trucks to bring the sand into the reserve and pile it up on the shore of the lagoon. Heavy equipment exists that could just pump the sand onto the island but that costs money, which is a resource we don't have. I decide instead to use a resource that we do have in abundance: volunteers.

I draw up a design for a raft to cart the sand across, like a giant floating wheelbarrow. I pick up some old plastic drums from a cleaning supplies shop in town and then nail together some wooden struts to form a frame. I start with a prototype. I use only two of the four plastic drums so the prototype is only half the size of the intended vessel. I put the frame together, largely making it up as I go along.

Finally the ship is ready for a test run. Not wanting to risk my precious sand, I instead decide to use the expendable volunteers as my first cargo. Three of us jump on, and I'm careful to choose the lightest volunteers. Since the raft is only half of its intended size it is not overly balanced and there are a few rocky moments. I grab some old water containers and we strap these off the side like an outrigger canoe. The end result is not pretty but it holds.

We paddle out past the reeds and turn to come back again. At this point another volunteer turns up and decides he wants to join the crew. As we pull up near the small wharf to let him on, the three of us all lean to one side at the same time. The raft flips and we go with it. We bob among the lilies trying to gather up the plastic drums and bits of wood as they start to drift away. It's at this point that I learn that lotus lilies, like roses, may have pretty flowers but their thorns are not for show. By the time we've climbed ashore we're all ripped to shreds.

After this obvious success of the prototype I forge ahead with the construction of my masterpiece. The good ship Endeavour is ready to sail. I am reluctant however to christen it in the traditional manner of smashing a bottle of Champaign over the bough; I'm not entirely sure it will withstand the blow.

Life's a Beach

Most of the sandy banks on these inland waterways come from sediment run off. Over the years the rains carve out handfuls of sand and then carry them down stream, bit by bit. As the rivers bend and twist down towards the ocean they scatter the sand they've brought with them and eventually craft a nice sandy beach, good enough to sit and fish from while the billy boils over a nearby campfire.

The waterways on the wetlands, being recently man made, haven't had time to build up beaches like this. They might never manage it. Humans are the masters of efficiency and control. We like things straight, rigid and direct, so the irrigation channels that fill our lagoons don't have the gentle meander that nature would have given them. Add to that the various damns and drains that the water has to pass through and there's not a lot of sand coming our way.

Our crocodiles need a beach however. Being cold blooded they need to lie about in the sun to regulate their body temperature. They also use the sand to bury their eggs and these bake slowly for several months until the young hatchlings burst out and clamber to the surface (usually to be devoured by the waiting birds and other reptiles). Without a beach our crocodiles won’t hang around and within a few days they'll be heading back downstream.

'Beach engineer' is not a job I’d ever anticipated having so I start with little knowledge and a plan to learn as I go along (my usual approach). There are several possible spots along the bank of the main lagoon but all have problems: the site is too close to the walking trails; the water is too shallow; the banks are too steep.

Fifty meters off the shore, at the far end of the lagoon is a small island overrun with weeds. The bank of this is perfect and it has the added benefit that being on an island it will be harder for the feral pigs and dogs to get on and cause trouble (both can swim but at least we'll see them coming). It's perfect; except for the tiny complication of actually being able to get sand onto it.

The Croc Hunter

Since its conception as a wildlife sanctuary, the intention has always been to introduce freshwater crocodiles into the Mareeba Wetlands. The area was full of crocs fifty years ago but after a long spell of heavy hunting and the drainage of the permanent waterways they disappeared completely.

It might sound a little stupid, putting crocs into a waterway, but the fish-eating freshies (unlike their bulkier cousins) are reasonably passive towards humans unless provoked. You can even go swimming with them if you're keen enough (though you could lose a few digits if the freshie mistakes you for a fish). Generally these little reptiles will clear-off as quickly as possible if they hear us oafish humans approaching.

Crocs are needed to keep the ecosystem in balance. Without a big predator in our waterways the fish are getting big, fat and lazy. The big fish are eating all the little fish and this is unhealthy competition for the birds. The theory (which is all we've got when it comes to things like this) is that putting in crocs will help maintain the balance. The eggs and hatchlings are also a popular, protein-rich delicacy for the birds and other reptiles around.

A few years back the EPA gave us permission to capture forty crocs from further downstream (where the crocs are still living in healthy numbers) and to then release these into our lagoons. The wardens at the Wetlands have been too busy to do anything with this and at the end of this year the permit will expire and they'll have missed their window of opportunity.

I heard about this unfortunate little predicament in my first week at the Wetlands as a volunteer. My cunning little mind took quiet note of this and in the dark recesses of my skull, began its machinations. A few subtle questions and some gentle probing gave me the information I needed and I then put my case to the wardens and management. I'd already proven my predilection for hard work by this stage and with the help of the Internet (God bless those proud and noble geeks) I was able to put together the outline of a strategy that looked good enough to work.

Within two weeks I was handed the job of designing and implementing the plan to capture and relocate forty freshwater crocodiles into the Wetlands. The wardens, already overloaded with work and with as much crocodile knowledge as I have, were only too happy to offload this job onto me. I've been given a huge amount of autonomy over the project, reporting directly to the manager of the Wetlands on my progress.

For almost a month now I've been researching crocs, talking with croc handlers, examining sites and contemplating logistics. The plan is beginning to take shape and by the end of November, if all goes well, I will have all forty crocs enjoying the good life at Club Mareeba. All I have to do now is start practicing my calls of "Crikey!" and "Have a go at this one!!". Hopefully Santa will know where to drop off my khaki shorts this Christmas.

Dead Meat

I'm not sure why but wherever I go, if there's a dead animal about it somehow ends up my job to deal with it. In Ecuador I had to bury Paddy, our puppy, in the back yard after an illness did him in (leaving him as stiff as a board, since the girls had left him out for a day waiting for me to get back and deal with the body). In Costa Rica too, I did my fair share of picking through the rotten remains of unhatched turtles trying to work out why they didn't hatch.

I'm at the wetlands for less than three weeks before I'm assigned my first carcass to deal with. A python has died out in the middle of the lagoon and the wardens' have noticed it on their boat tours. Things are busy enough that they forget to deal with it for a good few days and by the time they remember it's developed a somewhat pungent aroma. Knowing this, the wardens quickly decide that handling rotting corpses is one of the key responsibilities of the newly appointed Assistant Warden.

I wait for the last tourists to leave and then I set out in the small electric boat. I convince Michael, the new German volunteer, that a tour around the lagoon would be a great way to get to know the area. I 'forget' to mention the rotting snake to him until after we've cast off. We're ploughing through the lilies before he realises I've duped him.

We arrive at the spot that the wardens pointed out but there's no sign of the snake; the wind must have pushed it away. We circle the area for a while, investigating suspicious shadows on the water but finding nothing but driftwood and debris. With the sun dropping behind the mountains and the light starting to fade, we decide to call it quits. Halfway back however something nestled amongst the lilies catches my eye and I decide to check out one last bundle. It's our snake.

It's huge; at least two meters long and that's without its head (which has been eaten off by fish). Most of its body has bloated to the size of a football, but the parts that aren't bloated are still as thick as my wrist. As we pull up next to it I nearly black-out from the stench; several days stewing in the sun has not enhanced this reptiles natural aroma.

I try to send Michael up front with the rope and an oar to deal with it. He starts to dry retch and refuses to go near it (bloody Europeans!). Resigned, I put the motor in idle and head up myself. I use the oar to lift the heavy, leathery body out of the water and then hook the rope around it and tie it in place. All the while I'm praying that the bloated skin won't split, spraying a horrid gas straight onto me. A few close calls, but the leather holds and I manage to secure the body enough that I can drag it to the shore, trailing it behind the boat.

It's too dark to deal with by the time we get back, so we leave it tied up to the wharf with the rope at maximum extent. I'm first up in the morning however (I'm a morning person) and the wind has changed overnight. The rotten stench fills the visitor centre and there's no way I can manage breakfast. I jump back in the boat and drag the foul thing to the other side of the lagoon.

I climb ashore and push through the long grasses, dragging the corpse behind me and with a shovel over one shoulder. It crosses my mind a few times that this huge python would have spent its happier days in exactly this type of long grass that I'm now waist deep in. I push on regardless and eventually find a clearing, where I dig a hole and bury the thing putting rocks in over the top in an optimistic attempt to stop the feral pigs in the area from digging it up again.

Back at the visitor centre, I disinfect the boat and the rope. I scrub my hands and arms to the elbow. I take a second shower, and then a third later that day. Despite all this a faint stench of rotten snake seems to somehow linger for the rest of the day.