FOR a creature so menacing, capturing the rogue crocodile in the northern beaches last night proved to be disarmingly simple.
Just before dusk, with nets set up strategically, Craig Adams, operations manager at the Australian Reptile Park, stripped down to his swimmers, donned goggles, and went for a paddle. Minutes later he emerged holding one saltwater crocodile, far from its comfort zone.
It is believed the croc is male and aged about three. But how it came to be in a Dee Why pond remains a mystery. The reptile park's spokeswoman, Mary Rayner, said: "It's illegal to keep crocodiles as pets so … somebody might have smuggled it into NSW and it escaped, or it got too big and it was dumped." It probably would not have survived the winter had it evaded capture, she said. Its new abode will be the reptile park at Somersby on the Central Coast.The reptile was first spotted by a Cromer cafe owner, Silvana Morello, who said her friends thought she was mad or "had had too much to drink" when she mentioned the sighting.
While the croc was tiny, the media presence throughout the day was huge, including helicopters, camera crews and blow-by-blow analysis on talkback radio.
At one point police evicted a TV camera crew that had waded into the water to flush out the croc from beneath some lilypads at the industrial estate off South Creek Road. Sightseers, too, mobbed the pond, forcing police to seal it off.
Estimates of the reptile's size had varied wildly before its capture. "It's a friggin' lizard," said one local, Zaab Burt. "I can't believe it has kicked up all this fuss. It says more about the humans than the croc."
Ms Morello said the croc's arrival had made business brisk. "But if anyone else says 'make it snappy' I will scream."
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