Crocodile eggs cook in sun as rain comes late to Top End nesting season
By Fiona Broom and Daniel Fitzgerald
ABC Rural
Topic:Animals
14m ago14 minutes agoThu 27 Mar 2025 at 8:16pm
A tiny crocodile looks at the camera with its mouth open.
A newly hatched saltwater crocodile. (ABC Rural: Fiona Broom)
In short:
Crocodile farms in the Northern Territory pay big money for wild eggs collected by Indigenous rangers.
But many wild eggs have had unviable embryos this wet season due to hotter-than-usual weather and late rains.
What's next?
Croc parks with egg climate control say they have had "a really good year", hatching a strong new wave of saltwater crocodiles.
Selling crocodile eggs is an important business for remote Indigenous rangers who brave Top End swamps to collect them for farms near Darwin.
Experienced rangers search for eggs by helicopter and buggy, or travel by foot into nesting areas.
"We walk in with a pretty big group, try and make as much noise as we can so the animals know we're coming," said Djelk Rangers manager Jason Koh.
"You've just got to look after each other and watch each other's back.
"We have a side arm and we also carry large wooden oars, boat oars."
Crocodiles nest and lay eggs during the November to May wet season.
But this wet season, it is not just protective female crocodiles that are a challenge for egg collectors.
a man places crocodile eggs in a blue bucket.
Rangers collect crocodile eggs within the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area. (Facebook: Bawinanga Rangers)
Mr Koh said larger-than-usual numbers of eggs did not have viable embryos — and he blamed the heat and lack of rain.
"A few of the first nests we visited this season, the eggs have not been fertile," he said.
"You can tell by the colour of the egg, the banding on the egg and once we get them back to the ranger base we candle the egg with a torch and you can see if it's a viable egg."
Hot season leaves eggs exposed
Indigenous ranger groups can secure permits to gather and trade crocodile eggs.
This season, about 150 out of the 900 eggs collected by the Djelk Rangers near Maningrida, 500 kilometres east of Darwin, have not been fertile.
The first monsoon of the wet season was six weeks later than average, and heatwaves have been all too frequent.
Mr Koh said many of the crocodile nests suffered from the lack of cloudy weather and rain.
A drone shot of a boat in a river surrounded by mangroves..
Indigenous rangers harvest saltwater crocodile eggs to generate income for their communities. (ABC News: Michael Franchi)
"Some of the nests are on the flood plains where there's not much shade and they seem to get cooked," he said.
"Crocodile eggs are pretty sensitive to temperatures.
"If they're too cold they end up all females, if it's 32 degrees [Celsius] they end up males — and they don't like the temperature going up much more than that."
Croc populations on the rise
Crocodiles are such an identifiable Australian species that it's hard to believe they were almost wiped out just 50 years ago.
Protection laws introduced in the 1970s have helped wild populations bounce back, with more than 100,000 saltwater crocodiles now believed to live in northern Australia.
The open mouth of a crocodile emerges from an egg.
A baby saltwater crococile hatching from its egg. (ABC Rural: Fiona Broom)
Scientists credit the crocodiles with helping control the growing number of invasive animals in the north.
Charles Darwin University ecologist Hamish Campbell said in the 1970s young buffalo and pigs could wallow around freely.
"Not now, [they'd] get smashed by a 5-metre crocodile," he said.
Mr Koh said the community in Arnhem Land supported the rangers' wild croc egg harvesting.
"It's probably one of the most ethical ways we can control crocodile numbers in the homelands,"
he said.
"There's probably up to 50 eggs in each nest, so that's 50 crocodiles out of the system."
Crocodiles are farmed for their leather, which is turned into luxury items for high-end fashion houses, primarily in Europe.
Meat is a by-product of the process.
'Good year' for croc park
At a Darwin wildlife park, where climatic conditions can be controlled, it has been "a really good year" for baby crocodiles.
A young woman holds a tiny crocodile in her hands.
Crocodile keeper Jess Grills with a just-hatched baby saltwater crocodile. (ABC Rural: Fiona Broom)
But Jess Grills from Darwin's Crocodylus Park said it still took careful monitoring.
"If you've got a very hot day and a nest has been laid in the morning, without the rain it is crucial to get those eggs out straight away," she said.
"Otherwise, the heat in the nest will overcook the eggs and kill the embryos."
Through a combination of seasonal luck and the use of egg incubators, the park now has a strong new generation of baby saltwater crocodiles.
"Most of our nests did come pretty early," Ms Grills said.
"We've had a few late layers, which is okay, but I think we're pretty much done for the season."
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Posted14m ago14 minutes agoThu 27 Mar 2025 at 8:16pm
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