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Fearsome as they are, Australia's saltwater crocodiles don't kill many people.
It's a fact.
The world reacts in horror to Australia's native nasties, comedians make a living from it, but the truth is different.
The road toll is real, so too the dangers from working on farms, in mines, construction sites, skydiving, even walking across a busy road.
A colleague was reciting to me the other day the statistics on fatalities caused by falling furniture, like our mega-TV's toppling on loved ones - that was real as well.
Salties and sharks need to form a lobby group to press their case for redemption.
Spiders could join as well, not sure about snakes.
I lived in the Northern Territory for five years, up the top where crocs are just as feared by locals as those living anywhere outside of it.
It remains one of my regrets from living in the Top End, not being able to swim in the water.
The Arafura Sea is the most inviting colour you could imagine, a gorgeous turquoise, and the weather is of course famously hot year-round.
The tropical ocean calls you to have a dip, just to cool off.
Locals have bets on the tourists they see falling victim to this siren song, how long they will last?
Almost 200 crocodiles have been pulled out of these waters already this year, it works out to be about one a day from Darwin Harbour, and they're hardly trying.
Locals walk about 10 metres from the water's edge.
I well remember when my wife and I visited Darwin before we decided to make the move we were doing the tourist things and walked out on the Nightcliff Jetty for a safe look at the harbour.
Two backpackers were splashing in the shallows, we really didn't think too much of it, it was hot after all.
A local man was shepherding his kids and away and offered his opinion that they were croc bait.
On cue, one of the lads in the water starting screaming at the top of his lungs, calling for his mate to help.
They quickly clambered over the rocks and out but it wasn't a croc attached to his arm, or a stinger (box jellyfish) wrapped around his leg, but something on his shoulder.
I never did find out exactly what it was but it was some sort of snail, or sea animal which had attached itself to him.
This water is a hot soup of living things, best keep your distance.
On moving there, we took the advice never to go swimming where you couldn't feel tiles under your feet or smell chlorine.
Numerous stories, visits to croc farms and the croc jumping tours cured us of ever wanting to swim in the rivers or sea.
Since being shot out and almost made extinct in the 1970s, crocs were protected in the Territory and in Queensland.
Their numbers have boomed since, many folk think the shooting should begin again.
A Queensland government three-year survey released last week showed the current estuarine crocodile population is estimated at between 20,000-30,000.
That survey found the average rate of population growth for the species across its range is 2.2 per cent per year and only 20 per cent of its population is found south of Cooktown.
Due to the limited amount of suitable nesting habitat, the Queensland crocodile population was not expected to reach the size or density of the NT crocodile population, the survey found.
In the Territory, the croc population is just a guess.
At least 100,000 in the wild is the latest. Most think that's piffle.
For some reason there's very few people volunteering to count them.
But for all the Crocwise campaigns, the warning signs, the gossip, few people are killed by them.
Perhaps the authorities have done a good job of frightening people.
More likely it is just a look at the beasts themselves, a tourist photo will do.
They are fearsome creatures to look at, death in their jaws is stuff of nightmares. Like a white pointer shark.
They emerge from the egg programmed to bite.
In my years in the Territory I only came across one person with a personal tale of tragedy, his son had been taken. Awful.
They are rare, but they do happen.
For sure stay out of the water, but there's more danger up north from the same calamities which claim people's lives down south as well.
It's a great place the Territory.
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