THE AUSTRALIAN (Sydney, Australia) 19 August 06 Sex disease killing scores of baby crocs (Nigel Adlam)
Thousands of baby captive crocodiles have died painful deaths from a sex disease during the past few weeks.
Crocodile farmers believe the chlamydia outbreak has not been caused by crocodiles mating with each other -- but has been brought in by birds.
The disease is believed to have hit four of the Top End's five crocodile farms.
It has not affected the wild population.
Staff at Darwin's Crocodylus Park have tried a string of antibiotics to combat the disease.
But park owner Grahame Webb said: "Nothing is working."
He is in touch with the world's leading crocodile vet, Fritz Huchzermeyer, in South Africa in a bid to find a cure.
Chlamydia, which only seems to infect young crocodiles, causes a conjunctivitis-like condition and throat infection.
"They die from lung congestion," Dr Webb said. "It's not pleasant."
The zoologist believes the disease is being spread by pied herons, which scavenge on Darwin's rubbish dump and then roost at some crocodile farm ponds.
Darwin Crocodile Farm owner Mick Burns said chlamydia had been found among his 36,000 animals but none had died.
He said the epidemic had come as crocodile farming was gearing up to develop into a business worth tens of millions of dollars a year.
Dr Webb said: "In a few years we'll look back on this as a mere glitch. But we still must tackle the problem properly now."
Sex disease killing scores of baby crocs