For several hours, I was convinced I’d killed the biggest crocodile we’d ever caught.
It turned out I was very, very wrong.
The phone call came from a government Aboriginal farm where chickens had been disappearing for weeks. Then enormous footprints began appearing around and in trays of wet chicken mash near the workers’ campsite after heavy rain. Whatever was leaving the footprints had also been wandering through the camp at night.
We suspected we were dealing with the same animal.
Beside the camp lay a large billabong with a small island in the middle.
** The perfect habitat where a crocodile could live - one of Australia’s many tropical billabongs.
Our job was to capture the crocodile alive and relocate it to our uncles crocodile farm, and the island seemed the perfect place to set a trap.
Crocodiles are naturally cautious. Unless they’re desperately hungry, they’ll often spend several days watching anything unfamiliar before investigating it. So after baiting the trap, all we could do was wait.
Each morning two local boys from a nearby banana farm rode their trail bikes down to the billabong to check whether the trap had sprung.
On the third morning the phone finally rang.
“The trap’s down!”
I grabbed the drug box containing our vials of sedatives and syringes while the rest of the team loaded ropes, porta-boards and equipment into our long-wheelbase four-wheel drive and off we sped down the road. Behind us rattled the flat-bottomed aluminium punt that had carried us on countless crocodile captures and relocations.
Although we’d done this many times before, no two captures were ever the same. Every crocodile had its own temperament, and that uncertainty always tied your stomach in knots.
Finally, we reached the billabong, launched the punt and motored towards the island.
As the trap came into view, every one of us fell silent. The giant we would later name Gregory made every crocodile we’d ever caught look ordinary. Later we measured him at 5.2 metres—seventeen feet—but standing beside him that morning, the numbers meant nothing. His head alone was almost two feet across and his jaws looked impossibly wide. He barely moved, but he didn’t have to. His sheer size made every one of us instinctively lower our voices.
My uncle, who led the capture team, climbed onto the trap and, in one smooth movement, straddled Gregory just behind the shoulders before slipping a hessian bag over his eyes. Remarkably, once a crocodile’s vision is covered, it often becomes much calmer.
That was my cue. As the team’s nurse, my job was to sedate him and minimise his stress as we safely removed him from the trap. Normally, two injections of Valium were more than enough.
Gregory barely noticed.
I administered a third.
Still he fought.
By the fourth, I could feel the knot forming in my stomach. I’d never used that much before. Eventually he settled enough for us to slide him onto the porta-board before manoeuvring him onto the punt.
The North Queensland heat was oppressive. Sweat poured off every one of us as we wrestled with several hundred kilograms of prehistoric muscle. Finally, exhausted but relieved, we pushed away from the island.
Not halfway across the billabong, disaster struck. Without warning Gregory exploded into life. One violent twist cracked the porta-board beneath him and loosened several restraining ropes.
For a split second nobody moved. Then instinct took over. I grabbed the last injection of Valium from the drug box and injected it. It was all I had left.
We had no choice but to turn the punt around and head back to the island. We waited until Gregory settled again before attempting the crossing once more. Those next twenty minutes felt like hours. My mind raced through every possible scenario if he woke again before we reached the shore. Eventually he relaxed once more and, with considerably more caution, we attempted the crossing again.
This time we made it.
Back on shore, the farm workers helped us haul Gregory up the steep bank using what felt like every rope we owned.
Then someone noticed another problem. He wouldn’t fit on the tray on the back of our truck.
Silence.
Then one of the young boys who’d been checking the trap each morning grinned.
** Well … this is one way to transport a crocodile when they are this big
“My dad’s got a banana truck.” Problem solved.
Two hours later Gregory arrived safely at his new enclosure at the crocodile farm.
We gradually removed the ropes until only the hessian bag remained over his eyes. This was always the most dangerous part. Everyone except my uncle left the enclosure. One worker stood outside the gate holding a long rope attached to one corner of the hessian bag.
Slowly my uncle stood. Very carefully, he stepped backwards. Gregory didn’t move. Step by careful step my uncle retreated until he reached the gate. The worker pulled the bag away.
Nothing.
Not even a blink.
A horrible thought crept into my mind. Had I overdosed him? Had I just killed the biggest crocodile we’d ever captured?
We waited.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
An hour.
Still nothing.
Even the farm’s Irish Wolfhound seemed to sense something was wrong, letting out the occasional deep, mournful bellow that echoed across the property.
** Johnston River Crocodile Farm Innisfail. This was home to some seriously big crocodiles.
Eventually everyone drifted back to their usual jobs, although I doubt any of us achieved much.
Dinner that evening was one of the quietest meals I can remember. I pushed food around my plate, replaying every injection in my mind.
Government authorities already knew we were bringing in a new crocodile that day. They certainly weren’t expecting me to kill it, even accidentally.
After dinner I wandered back to the enclosure one last time before deciding whether I needed to make what would have been a very unpleasant phone call. The enclosure looked empty. For one terrible second I thought he’d escaped.
Then I saw them.
Two eyes.
Just breaking the surface of the pond. Gregory had simply decided he’d had enough excitement for one day and slipped beneath the surface to recover.
The relief was overwhelming.
People often remember Gregory as the biggest crocodile we ever caught. I remember him as the crocodile I was absolutely certain I’d killed.
Gregory, as it turned out, had other ideas.
MEMORIES FROM THAT DAY
Let’s catch up again soon.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Have you ever experienced a moment when everything seemed to stand still? We’d love to hear what happened.