Thursday, June 24, 2010
Jaws...Meet Jaws
ntnews - This monster crocodile has just proven who's the king of the swamp.
The 5m saltwater croc made mince meat of a bull shark at Kakadu National Park.
A bunch of tourists looked on in shock when they saw the croc chomping on the shark at the upper flood plains of the South Alligator River on Saturday morning.
The shark had already been bitten in two by the hungry beast when this photograph was taken.
But tour guide Dean Cameron, 34, believed it would have been at least 3m long and weighed 60kg.
"It would have been amazing to see (the attack) - very wild footage," he said. "The croc would've taken the shark at night and then it would've had to take it to the bank to eat it."
Two separate tour boats with about 45 tourists each on board were shipping along the river as part of the Yellow Water Cruise about 8.15am when they saw the wild feast.
Mr Cameron, who was guiding one of the boats, said the visitors were over the moon to see the spectacle.
"Nearly 100 people saw it all up and they were jumping for joy," he said.
"They said this had made their Kakadu trip."
But it was not the first time a crocodile has been witnessed feasting on a shark.
Maxine Rawson-Rodriguez was on a jumping crocodile cruise at Adelaide River - about 100km south of Darwin - when the tourist boat came across a crocodile eating a shark on March 24.
And the Northern Territory News reported on January 29 how five fishermen fought off a crocodile to defend a prized shark caught off a Territory beach.
Mr Cameron, who has been a tour guide for two years and a park ranger for several more, said he would come across such a spectacle once a year.
And he said he was not surprised about finding sharks that far into a freshwater river system.
"With the wildlife here you just don't know what you'll get to see," he said.
"That's the beauty of it."
Jaws...Meet Jaws