You may have noticed a small girl from the rural suburbs of Darwin was recently taken by a "Saltie", as we call them up here. This is just the latest incident, there have been many more, and they appear on the city beaches regularly, and invade pools, creeks, and dams.
The main reason for this is widely accepted to be that as hunting was banned, there has been an un-natural number of crocs surviving and breeding. Normaly the larger crocs would predate a significant number of the young, it's nature's way, but as most of the bigguns were hunted out, the following generations have survived in large numbers, and are now hitting their full growth. As they are a territorial beast, they push each other further, and into places and areas they wouldn't normally have gone. This brings them into our lives, disastrously so.
The common answer among those of us who live with the danger is to allow a limited hunt, or a cull, to bring them back to a balanced number. The "greenies" can't see this, and are resisting, so where do we go from here?

Mate, I did a reply that vanished, it seems. I can't be bothered rewriting it.

The basic vibe:

The only way we'd guarantee peoples safety is if either we live there, or the crocs do.

There's been some horrible incidents lately with wild predatory animals and quite obviously my sympathies go to the families of the affected.

Unfortunately we can no more blame the crocs for their actions as we could crucify a bird for dropping one on your car. It's just what they do.

We created the problem, and the only answer is to either knock their numbers right back or move away. We'd do the same to the sharks if we had gills.

Dear Maximillion,

To fully understand the problem I guess you'd
have to live in the area - so I'm writing this
with very little knowledge on the subject
that you've raised. I'm not sure if 'Saltie's,'
are an endangered species? - is that why culling
isn't allowed? If they are increasing in numbers
and are becoming a problem I can't understand
why some culling would not be permissable.

As for the dangers involved - as StG - points out
certain safety pre-cautions must be taken. People
have to behave sensibly when going into these areas.
I'm sure that many of these attacks could be avoided
if people were more careful.

For a number of years I lived on a river, a little south of the current crock range.

The local sargent of police dropped in one day to say he had reports of a crock seen in our river. He was talking to people he knew did a fair bit of boating on the river, & may have some idea of the signs of crocks.

When he asked if I would let him know, if I saw something, I said "mate, If I do see something, I'll be sure to let you know where to find the body". I'm sure I detected a bit of a grin, & a slight nod, as he heard this. You see, both of us had lived further north, & knew that the only crock you want in your river is one floating belly up.

If by some off chance global warming proves to be true, one good thing would be, when Sydney harbour became crock habituate. What would be the reaction of our southern city based greenies?

We have seen a sudden lack of protests about dams to be built to supply their cities with water.

Would we see a demand for crock culls? No, we'd see new zoning laws. You know, it's still OK for crocks to eat people in their old ranges, those hicks up there aren't really people anyway, but they must be eliminated south of about Gladstone. After all, some elite southerners holiday at Noosa, so we can't have them there, can we.

It is a bit like the greenies demonstrating for renewable energy like
windfarms and then going to a demonstration against a desalination plant powered by wind farms !
There does not have to be logic in it, just a good do !

It is a pity that the parents did not educate those children about
crocodiles. A good lesson would be to throw some food into the water
as a demonstration for the kids.

Sorry there Bazz, but those kids WERE educated, and strictly forbidden to go there, and that worked just as well as any other such prohibition with kids that age. There's a limit, you can't watch your kids every second of every day, that's just a fact of life. And throwing food in the water is just about as insane as you can get, not only will any crocs there NOT respond, it will attract more, hardly a good idea!
The problem lies in how many large ones there now are, an un-natural number, and that was caused by US, so to my way of thinking it's up to us to adjust the numbers, Nature will eventually, but we'll lose a lot of people before She does. The worst thing about all this is the fact that it took a "white" girl being taken to draw attention, crocs take indigenous children every year, and everyone just sighs and says "what can you do"?