Australian Penthouse

Australian adventurer, Ben Cropp, embarks on a nocturnal journey through North Queensland to film our most dangerous predator: the crocodile

STORY: BEN CROPP
PHOTOS: DEAN, BEN & TANYA CROPP / KYM SHERIDAN

The night is dark and eerie. My son, Dean, swings the infrared camera and lamp in an arc along the beach. Eyes glow like fireflies as they glide along the waters edge. “That’s nine crocs right here on the beach,” he says and points. “That’s
this way. I haven’t looked the other way yet.”

We, and the crocodiles, are here for just one thing—turtle hatching. We know the crocs like to prey on the baby Flatback turtles as they run down the beach from their nests in the sand dunes.

No-one has ever filmed this before, and that’s why documentary makers like me take up the challenge. An infrared lamp is a must.

It won’t scare the crocs, and if we’re very quiet—and very careful—they may not even notice us at all.

There is one big problem: we can only see the crocs through the camera, and since Dean has it, I’m walking blind. The infrared lamp has an effective filming range of no more than 20 metres—10 metres will give us a better shot, so we edge closer.

Something scampers over my bare foot.

I jump even though I know what it is. Baby turtles are emerging from a nest behind us. The crocs sense them, too. A snout rises from the water and a four-metre giant waddles up the beach. A swarm of turtles run straight for him, and the predator plucks the babies one by one. Dean captures it all on film.

The croc suddenly stops feeding and looks straight at us. We freeze. It arches its front legs as if bracing to lunge. I hold my breath, not daring to move a muscle. It’s a dramatic face-off. Seconds pass slowly, then the croc turns and plunges into the water.

We spend eight nights on the beach just to capture seven minutes of edited film for my latest TV special. It’s worth it.

We are at Crab Island, a kilometre off the north-west tip of the Cape York Peninsula. It’s a crescent-shaped, vegetated sand cay, home to the largest Flatback turtle rookery in the world.

Flatbacks nest only in Northern Australia. They’re vulnerable but not endangered—the female population may be as high as 10,000. They get their name from a relatively flat shell with turned up edges, and measure a metre long. Flatbacks lay about 50 eggs, which is fewer than other marine turtles. Incubation takes six weeks and mortality is high. Wild pigs have an excellent sense of smell and can easily locate the buried eggs and dig them up. Here on Crab Island, there is no pig predation, but crocodiles and ghost crabs take a heavy toll.

Like all female turtles, Flatbacks return to nest at the place where they were born. We time our arrival at Crab when the nesting is nearing its end and overlaps with the hatching season.

On our first day ashore, imprints in the sand tell a terrible tale, a record of the drama about to unfold before us. I can clearly see the indentation of a croc and dozens of hatchling tracks running towards it, where they abruptly stop. A dozen crocodiles had come up the beach the night before and feasted on the baby turtles.

The infrared lamp picks up the stalking eyes of seven crocs that first night. One is feeding, a ghostly shadow swinging its head and scooping up hatchlings. When we enter the 20-metre filming range, the crocodile looks directly at us, spins around and plunges into the water. The same thing happens again and again until all the crocs are in the water, bobbing up and down in the waves.

It’s nice to know that the crocs are scared of us, but we’re missing the real action. We’re not getting close enough to film. We have no choice but to wait for a less moonlit night, one week away, if we want to capture the footage we’ve come a long way for. In the meantime, we turn our attention to other adventures.

I pilot my boat into a river south of Crab Island. The first thing I see is a giant groper, begging for a feed, and we soon have some trevally onboard. Supper, yes, but not for us.

Dean loves wrangling giant gropers and sharks. He ties a rope to the trevally and tosses it in. The groper immediately appears, all 150 kilograms of it, and grabs the fish. Dean has to use all his strength to prevent himself from being pulled in. Two more giant gropers appear, and all three take turns running with the bait.

Continued next page

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