THE ADVERTISER (Adelaide, Australia) 08 October 05 Crocodiles: the beasts of prey - Peter Hackett on why humans fall victim to these prehistoric predators.
They have been around since the dinosaur and with three attacks on humans in just over two weeks have proven again they are still one of the world's greatest killers.
The crocodile is native to Australia. It is also one of the biggest threats to Australians who move into their territory.
The crocodile is not simply a killer. It is a very intelligent animal.
It lurks beneath the water, eyeing-off its prey, which cannot see it.
And then it strikes. Very seldom does it miss its target.
It makes the death-roll, drowning its prey, and then usually takes it off to bury it, until the rotten carcase is ripe for feeding.
It is not that crocodiles hunt humans. They will hunt almost anything that looks tasty.
And if you think you need to go swimming or fishing to encounter a crocodile, think again. They have been found in estuaries in suburban Darwin. More than 50 crocodiles have been found in Darwin suburbs this year.
The latest attack was a 10-year-old girl, mauled by a crocodile while swimming off the Kimberley Coast in Western Australia this week. The girl was swimming off a charter vessel at Double Bay. She escaped with lacerations to an arm.
Most aren't so lucky.
The latest fatality was a 56-year-old man, while diving off Cobourg Peninsula, 200km north-east of Darwin, last Thursday.
Just five days before, Russell Harris, 37, an Englishman, was taken by a crocodile while snorkelling with a friend off Groote Eylandt, near Arnhem Land.
In August, as Barry Jeffries sat in his red Canadian canoe on Midway Waterhole, in the remote Normandy River on Cape York, with his wife, he must have thought he was in heaven.
What he didn't know was that there was a 4m crocodile watching his every move.
Everything was okay until Mr Jeffries stood up in the canoe.
The crocodile struck, with lightning speed, and overturned the canoe. Mr Jeffries, a Townsville railway worker, and his wife were thrown into the water. Jeffries was swimming towards the shore when he was attacked. His wife managed to get to the beach unharmed.
John Parmenter, Queensland University reptile specialist, says: "A big male will float on the surface and raise his head high. It's a threat display. What he is saying is, if you come any closer I'll beat the living daylights out of you.
"But if another male was floating on the surface as well, he will have a go at you. If you're sitting in a canoe or a tinnie you could look like an aggressive male."
Dr Parmenter says crocodiles have little "horizontal vision box".
"If you're standing you don't fit the box - you look big and the croc might go away."
John Lever, of Rockhampton's Koorana Crocodile Farm, says: "Attacks are more likely to be on the water's edge rather than in the centre of a wide stretch of river."
Mr Lever says most attacks are more likely to be territorial than hunger-driven.
Crocodiles: the beasts of prey