YouTuber Rodney Fischer films wallabies climbing onto crocodile’s back on bank of Ord River in East Kimberley
Did someone say Deliveroo?
It’s hard to say if they are brave or stupid, but these bounding furry meals couldn’t get any closer to this croc unless they climbed into its jaws.
It’s surprisingly not unheard of for wallabies and crocs to cosy up on the banks of the Ord River in the East Kimberley to grab a few sunrays together.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.YouTuber Rodney Fischer of Wyndham has documented this before on his channel Tropical Exposure.
However, Mr Fischer’s photos taken on the middle of the Ord River on Sunday morning show wallabies so close to the crocodile they appear to be bounding over it.
“When I first seen it, it had its mouth wide open, just gaping, and the wallabies are just coming out of the tree line behind it and drifted over closer and closer,” Mr Fischer said.
He suspected the crocodile may not have attacked the wallabies because it was out of the water.
“A crocodile mainly hunts from the water and will launch out and grab prey getting a drink. So I think if the crocodile was sitting in the water and the wallabies came down to get a drink it would have been a different story.”
“Wallabies are pretty quick but if they would have got within striking range the croc certainly would have had a go at it.”
It is the best time to go crocodile spotting on the Ord River as the cooler months lead to more salties sunning themselves on the river banks.
“The population’s got bigger, there’s a lot more people seeing bigger crocodiles as well as good population in that river but the bigger crocodiles keep the population in check,” Mr Fischer said.
The largest crocodile Mr Fischer has seen on the Ord River is a 5.5m saltie nicknamed Mr Jones.
Last month Mr Fischer captured a spectacular shot via drone of the aftermath of Mr Jones’ beef with a cow. Needless to say, it was hamburgers for Mr Jones’ lunch that day.
A survey by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions staff of the Ord River in 2019 found there were about 2,000 estuarine crocodiles with an average of seven animals per km of river surveyed. 80 per cent of crocodiles in the Ord River were larger than 1.8m. The biggest population increase was in the freshwater section of the river.
A survey of King River in July last year found there were 102 crocodiles or two crocodiles per km of the river surveyed. Those larger than 1.8m makeup half the number of animals counted. There were also about 160 non-hatchling crocodiles (larger than 60cm)
King River has been surveyed since 1986 and the population of estuarine crocodiles continue to grow by around 8 per cent per year on average.
