To save or to execute? Life in the crocodile capital of Australia

It's dawn over Darwin Harbour, and government ranger Kelly Ewen – whose job it is to catch and remove crocodiles – is balancing precariously on a floating trap.

Heavy rain clouds from the recent storm were hovering overhead. The boat's engine has been cut off, so it's now mostly silent – ​​apart from the intermittent spray of water coming from inside the trap.

“You have almost no chance with these guys,” Ewen says as he tries to tie a noose around the agitated reptile's jaw.

We're in Australia's Northern Territory, home to an estimated 100,000 wild saltwater crocodiles, more than anywhere in the world.

The capital, Darwin, is a small coastal town surrounded by beaches and wetlands.

As you will quickly learn here in the New Testament, where there is water, there are usually crocodiles.

Saltwater crocodiles – or saltwater, as locals call them – were on the verge of extinction 50 years ago.

After World War II, uncontrolled trade in their skins rose and numbers fell to about 3,000.

But when hunting was banned in 1971, the population began to rise again – and quickly.

It is still a protected species, but is no longer threatened.

The recovery of the saltwater crocodile has been so dramatic that Australia now faces a different dilemma: managing their numbers to keep people safe and the public on their side.

“The worst thing that can happen is when people turn[against crocodiles],” explains crocodile expert Professor Graham Webb.

“And then the politician will always come up with a knee-jerk reaction (that) they will ‘solve’ the crocodile problem.”

The hot temperatures of the Northern Territory and the abundant surrounding coastal areas create an ideal habitat for cold-blooded crocodiles, which need warmth to maintain a constant body temperature.

There are also large populations of saltwater animals in northern Queensland and Western Australia as well as in parts of Southeast Asia.

While most crocodile species are harmless, saltwater crocodiles are territorial and aggressive.

Fatal accidents are rare in Australia, but they do happen.

Last year, a 12-year-old boy was kidnapped, the first death caused by a crocodile in the Northern Territory since 2018.

This is the busiest time of year for Ewen and his colleagues.

The breeding season has just begun, which means the saltwater are on the move.

His team is on the water several times a week, checking 24 crocodile traps surrounding the city of Darwin.

The area is known for its fishing as well as some brave swimmers.

Crocodiles taken out of the harbor are often killed, because if they were released elsewhere, they would likely return to the harbor.

“Our job is to try to keep people as safe as possible,” says Ewen, who has been doing his “dream job” for two years. Before that he was a policeman.

“Obviously we're not going to catch all the crocodiles, but the further we get out of the harbor, the less risk there is of encountering crocodiles and people.”

Another tool that helps maintain public safety is education.

The Northern Territory Government is going into schools with its 'Be Crocwise' program – which teaches people how to act responsibly around crocodile habitats.

Such has been its success that Florida and the Philippines are now looking to borrow it, in order to better understand how the world's most dangerous predators manage to live alongside humans with minimal interactions.

“We live in crocodile country, so it's a question of how do we (keep ourselves) safe around the waterways — how should we respond?” says Natasha Hoffman, the ranger who runs the program in the Northern Territory.

“If you're on boats when you're fishing, you have to be aware that they're out there. They're ambush hunters, they sit and watch and wait. If they have the opportunity to get some food, that's what they'll do.”

In the Northern Territory, mass culling is not currently on the table due to the protected status of the species.

But last year, the government approved a new 10-year crocodile management plan to help control their numbers, increasing the share of crocodiles that can be killed annually from 300 to 1,200.

This comes on top of the work Ewen's team is doing to remove any crocodiles that pose a direct threat to humans.

Every time a death occurs, the controversy over crocodiles living in close proximity to humans is renewed.

In the days after the 12-year-old was kidnapped last year, then Territory leader Eva Lawler made clear she would not allow the reptiles to outnumber the population in the Northern Territory.

The number currently stands at 250,000, which is much higher than the number of wild crocodiles.

It's a conversation that goes beyond the New Testament.

Queensland is home to about a quarter of the crocodiles found in the upper Northern Territory, but there are far more tourists, and far more deaths, meaning talk of culls sometimes comes up in election debates.

These predators may attract controversy, but they are also a big drawcard for the Northern Territory – for tourists but also for fashion brands keen to buy their skins.

Visitors can head to the Adelaide River to watch “crocodile jumping” – which involves feeding bits of salty meat at the end of a stick if they manage to jump out of the water for their audience.

“I'm supposed to tell you to put on your (life jackets),” Spectacular Jumping Croc Cruises skipper Alex 'Wookie' Williams said jokingly, explaining the boat's internal rules.

“The thing I don't have to tell you… (is that) life jackets are useless here.”

For Williams, who has been obsessed with crocs since childhood, there are plenty of opportunities to work alongside them.

“It has boomed over the last 10 years or so,” he says of the number of tourists coming to the area.

Agriculture, which emerged when hunting was prohibited, also became an economic engine.

It is estimated that there are now about 150,000 crocodiles in captivity in the New Testament.

Fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès – which sells its Birkin 35 Croc handbag for up to AU$800,000 ($500,000; £398,000) – have invested in the industry.

“Trade incentives have been effectively put in place to help people tolerate crocodiles, because we need a social license to be able to use wildlife,” says Mick Burns, one of the Northern Territory's leading farmers who works with luxury brands.

His office is located in Darwin city centre. The skin of a huge crocodile is spread on the ground. There is another piece fixed to the wall of the meeting room that extends at least four metres.

Burns also works on a farm in remote Arnhem Land, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of Darwin. There, he works with indigenous rangers to harvest and hatch alligator eggs to sell their skins to the luxury goods industry.

Otto Polmania Campion, one of the traditional owners of the area, who works alongside Burns, says more partnerships like theirs are critical to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities share in the financial benefits of the industry.

For tens of thousands of years, crocodiles have played an important role in indigenous cultures, shaping their sacred stories, lives and livelihoods.

“My father, and all the elders, would go and hunt crocodiles with spears, get a skin, and go and trade it for tea, flour and sugar. (However) there was no money at that time,” says a Balnagara man.

“And now, we want to see our people dealing with reptiles.”

But not everyone agrees with farming as a practice – even if participants say it helps preserve the environment.

The concern among animal rights activists lies in the way crocodiles are kept in captivity.

Although they are social animals, they are usually kept in individual pens to ensure that their hides are flawless – a scratch between two territorial crocodiles would almost certainly ruin a valuable commodity.

Everyone in Darwin has a story about these enormous creatures, regardless of whether they wanted to see them hunted in greater numbers or more meticulously preserved.

But the threat they still pose is not imaginary.

“If you go (swim) in the Adelaide River next to Darwin, there is a 100% chance you will die,” Professor Webb says matter-of-factly.

“The only question is whether it will take five minutes or 10 minutes. I don't think you'll ever get to 15 minutes, you'll be torn apart,” he adds. In his haste – evidence of a close encounter with an angry female nearly forty years ago while collecting eggs.

He makes no apologies for what he calls the authorities' pragmatism in managing numbers and making money from crocodiles along the way — a way of life that, for the immediate future at least, is here to stay.

“We did what very few people can do, which is deal with a very dangerous predator…and then deal with it in a way that makes the public willing (to tolerate it).

“If you tried to make people in Sydney, London or New York tolerate a dangerous predator – they wouldn't do it.”