Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Photos at the URLs below.
The horror, the horror.... forgive me.
Wes

NEWS.COM.AU (Australia) 23 February 06 Tiny man-eater caught in suburban pond
Photo: Binky ... the ---- saltwater croc found in a pond (Kristi Miller)
It will one day grow to be a killer but yesterday a saltwater crocodile was attracting people rather than turning them away.
Scores of locals gathered around a pond in Cromer on Sydney's Northern Beaches to see if the reports of a crocodile lurking below were true.
They waited patiently for hours expecting a giant maneater to emerge from the murky water.
But at 3pm (AEDT) the crowd burst into laughter when a 60cm saltwater crocodile surfaced, more cute than killer.
A keeper from the Australian Reptile Park last night donned goggles and fins to swim up to the crocodile and catch it.
The crocodile, affectionately known as "Binky", was found on Tuesday when local cafe owner Silvana Morello spotted what she thought was a lizard.
"My husband was outside the cafe having a coffee when he told me there was something in the pond," Silvana Morello said. "I went out there and saw a tail, some legs. I thought it was a lizard. But when I looked at it's eyes, I knew then it was a crocodile.
"I started telling everyone and they thought I was nuts. I called the local reptile shop and asked them to come and have a look, and sure enough it was a crocodile."
Ms Morello named the tiny crocodile "Binky".
"It is so cute,' she said. "I called her Binky because she has beautiful eyes that were blinking at me."
Reptile park spokeswoman Mary Rayner said the capture operation went smoothly.
"[The keeper] stripped off and put on goggles and fins and then very slowly swam towards the crocodile," Ms Rayner said. "He then swam underneath [it] and came up and caught it."
Local pet shop owner Adam Perring was alerted to the crocodile by Ms Morello on Wednesday morning but initially thought it was a hoax.
"I got a message on my voice mail saying there was a crocodile in a pond at Dee Why," Mr Perring said.
"I thought it must have been a water dragon which are very common. But my curiosity got the better of me so I came down. I waited a couple of hours and then it appeared. I could hardly believe it.
Mr Perring believed the crocodile, which is not found naturally in NSW, was an unwanted pet.
"I would say someone has had it as a pet and it has become too much for them. They have realised it's not as cute and cuddly as first thought and dumped it in here."
Ms Rayner last night said, while small, the animal was still dangerous.
"It could definitely leave some nasty gashes," she said before warning that the baby reptile could grow to 5m.
"If it gets hold of an arm it will lock its jaw and shake its head like a shark," she said.
"Binky" will now call the Reptile Park at Gosford home.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18253675-421,00.html?from=rss

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia) 23 February 06 Sorry, wrong habitat: the lost croc of Dee Why (Tim Colquhoun and Ben Cubby)
Photo: Here, ---- … Craig Adams, from the Australian Reptile Park, ----- saltwater crocodile from the Dee Why pond it had made its home. (Wade Laube)
For a creature so menacing, capturing the rogue crocodile in the northern beaches last night proved to be disarmingly simple.
Just before dusk, with nets set up strategically, Craig Adams, operations manager at the Australian Reptile Park, stripped down to his swimmers, donned goggles, and went for a paddle. Minutes later he emerged holding one saltwater crocodile, far from its comfort zone.
It is believed the croc is male and aged about three. But how it came to be in a Dee Why pond remains a mystery. The reptile park's spokeswoman, Mary Rayner, said: "It's illegal to keep crocodiles as pets so … somebody might have smuggled it into NSW and it escaped, or it got too big and it was dumped." It probably would not have survived the winter had it evaded capture, she said. Its new abode will be the reptile park at Somersby on the Central Coast.
The reptile was first spotted by a Cromer cafe owner, Silvana Morello, who said her friends thought she was mad or "had had too much to drink" when she mentioned the sighting.
While the croc was tiny, the media presence throughout the day was huge, including helicopters, camera crews and blow-by-blow analysis on talkback radio.
At one point police evicted a TV camera crew that had waded into the water to flush out the croc from beneath some lilypads at the industrial estate off South Creek Road. Sightseers, too, mobbed the pond, forcing police to seal it off.
Estimates of the reptile's size had varied wildly before its capture. "It's a friggin' lizard," said one local, Zaab Burt. "I can't believe it has kicked up all this fuss. It says more about the humans than the croc."
Ms Morello said the croc's arrival had made business brisk. "But if anyone else says 'make it snappy' I will scream."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/02/23/1140670213316.html

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia) 24 February 06 Croc shown the love (David Braithwaite)
Sydney's scaliest celebrity, the Dee Why crocodile, is recuperating from its star turn in style with a warm bath and a sun-lamp session.
And it turns out he is most likely a she.
The tiny saltwater crocodile stirred up a media circus yesterday when it was rescued from a Dee Why pond.
After roughing it in the wild, the crocodile was today enjoying the attentions of staff at its new home, the Australian Reptile Park on the Central Coast.
The reptile park's spokeswoman Mary Rayner said a competition would be held to name the frisky creature, which was in rude good health.
"She's in very good health -sometimes little crocs can go into shock and not recover but she's really feisty," she said.
"We're just about to put into a little tub and give her a warm bath under a UV lamp.
"She's going to get a nice new home and lots of tender loving care because she certainly deserves it.
"She's really a very attractive female crocodile, in peak condition with wonderful teeth and colouring.
"We're opening up a competition through our website to name her."
The crocodile, first thought to be male, was probably a female, Ms Rayner said, though it had not yet experienced the rigours of a definitive probe.
"There's two ways to ascertain the sex of a crocodile," she said.
"You can probe them, but we didn't want to stress her out.
"The other way to tell is that males have tendons in their neck they display and there's no sign of those, so we're assuming she's a female.
"We're certainly not going to probe her yet."
Ms Rayner said the crocodile, believed to be about three years old, could have been in the pond for months.
"She wouldn't have been in there last winter, she wouldn't have survived the cold, so we think she was put in there some time in late spring or summer," she said.
And the park's star exhibit, Eric the crocodile, will have to watch his mouth as he gains a rival for the public's attention.
"Her future holds a very nice exhibit here at the wildlife park - Eric's going to have to move over and share the limelight," Ms Rayner said.
"But we wouldn't let him anywhere near her, because he'd eat her."
It is unknown how the young crocodile came to be in the pond.
Croc shown the love