by Gil Hanrahan in Townsville
There is something in the air at the seaside hamlet of Cardwell, Far North Queensland. Maybe it is the sweet fishy aroma wafting in the seaside eddies, drifting from the cafés next to the waterfront.
Or it could be the fishermen who clean their catch leaving smelly titbits near the wharf or the tourists who sit at the picnic tables on the beachfront munching on their beef burgers or fish and chips letting their kids and dogs play on the nearby sandy shore close to the water.
Whatever is in the air has not only attracted a large crocodile which for years stalked the beachfront-it has affected the heads of some residents who are mourning the death of this 4.5 metre man-eating monster which was found shot in a small creek recently.
The Far North’s tiny minority of croc worshippers has attracted big media attention for staging a memorial event to grieve over its death.
Fortunately some good Samaritan shot this awful monster before it ate an unsuspecting tourist or one of their kids.
Such is the anti-human sentiment which prevails among the north’s tree climbers and cave dwellers. This tenor has a great hold on a minority of agnostics yet morbid animal worship drives Labor and Green’s policy of doing nothing about the exploding croc menace which has driven away tourists in droves.
Likewise the worship of disease-laden flying foxes which these dreadlocked few want to leave roosting in the Cairns CBD creating foul-smelling aromas and leaving paint-peeling, toxic droppings across car bonnets and windscreens.
The increasing croc and bat infestation has done more damage to the north’s once-famous waterways maxim; ‘beautiful one day and perfect the next’ than Bill Shorten arriving last week in a red bus.
Oldavid you are marvellous.Editor
I saw a film, homemade from the ‘70’s of two couples travelling to the northern peak of Qld, in two old ( new land cruisers ), no roads meant they had to float their vehicles across rivers. That meant they had to swim across with a rope etc. they commented ( and it wasn’t the Leyland brothers, but similar) that it was perfectly safe since crocs grow slowly and all the big ones had been shot ! How sensible ! If you want to glorify 45 ‘ long crocs , build a Secure croc farm and do ya thing,…but don’t let those monsters vandalise/destroy us in the wild.
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Pertinent comment, attractive prose.
But I need to take issue with “Such is the anti-human sentiment which prevails among the north’s tree climbers and cave dwellers.”
These dreadlocked or suit and tie inactivists are almost certainly not skilled tree climbers and they wouldn’t get 6 feet off the ground without elaborate “fall arrest” precautions in place.
Neither would they live in caves… always and only in very comfortable shelters built by the civilisation they hate so much that they abandon all reasonableness in their loathing.