‘Just trying to find his own home’: 3.3-metre crocodile starts new life after closing Cable Beach

A 3.3-metre saltwater crocodile spotted near a popular swimming site in Western Australia’s far north has been captured, named, and rehomed.

Parks and Wildlife rangers caught the “teenage” crocodile on Tuesday, following a sighting about 1.5 kilometres north of the rocks at Cable Beach, and relocated him to Broome’s Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park. 

“That croc is living its best new life out at the Croc Park on Broome Highway educating visitors,” Yawuru Parks Coordinator Wil Bennett told the ABC.  

Mr Bennett said Fingers was captured and taken to the Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park rather than moved on by rangers because he was found within the Crocodile Risk Mitigation Area within the Yawuru Conservation Park. 

Despite sightings of crocodiles being less common in the region during the dry season, he said this sighting showed that residents and visitors must always be “crocwise”. 

“If you’re anywhere in the north-west of Australia … you really need to be conscious that this is crocodile country,” Mr Bennett said.

Thriving population

Owen Douglas, who runs feeding tours on the property, said the sighting of a crocodile at Cable Beach during the dry season signalled that the crocodile population was thriving — largely due to the conservation work of his late grandfather, Malcolm Douglas. 

“In the past 50 years, since their protection, the population of crocodiles in the north-west here has shot up,” he said. 

“Many crocodiles are unable to find their own territory up north, so they’re travelling on their way down south, they get kicked out of every creek. 

“He’s just trying to find his own home; he’s not going to be living at Cable Beach.” 

Now that Fingers has been taken into captivity, there will be no more swims for him along Cable Beach. 

“We’re not able to reintroduce any of our crocodiles in the wild because the majority of ours are all caught in the wild,” Mr Douglas said. 

“Because a lot of them have been aggressive … you’re not going to reintroduce a very bad and lethal crocodile back into the wild.”

At just 3.3m long, Fingers is a “teenager” by crocodile standards, and still has plenty of growing to do.

“It’ll still be a few years till he’s eligible to make the cut to be on show,” Mr Douglas said. 

The park’s most famous inhabitants — all close to 5m in size — are “Fatso”, made famous by an encounter with a “spirituality seeking” tourist who broke into his enclosure; Aggro, bred by a Benedictine monk; and Maniac, a particularly wild specimen brought in after killing horses on a remote Kimberley station.