Australian deckhand fined $12,500 for taking selfies with two dead Great White sharks in act judge brands as “barbaric” and “vulgar”!

I think it’s the same in Australia. At least with regard to crocs This is a long one, but it’s worth the ride. Met a bloke in Bali traveling with his wife and a mate. They lived on Groote Eylandt, an island on the NT side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. No surf, but he worked hard to spend to save up enough to take an annual 2-3 month holiday in Indo each year.

I met him at Balian, which was at that point, still a semi-secret spot. After a day of waves we were hanging out in the restaurant at Bob’s when this story came out. Turns out that living on a remote island in the Northern Territory isn’t all action packed unless you make it so.

Couple of coincidences had to occur. First, a bloke turns up at the pub, gets a skinfull, and tells the patrons he is going to swim out to a mate’s yacht parked up in the bay. The crowd says ‘that’s not a good idea; there’s a crocodile that’s been hanging out in the bay for the past month or so’. The bloke is all ‘Nah, I’ll be right’, but the publican says ‘No worries mate, you can sleep in one of rooms upstairs for free, given how much money you have put over the bar here tonight’.

At closing the barman pours him upstairs into his room, shuts the door and all is good. The next morning, the bloke is nowhere to be found. Quick search reveals his shirt folded up on the beach of the bay, couple of footprints walking into the water, but none returning. Seems like knucklehead decided to swim out to mate’s yacht in the early hours. Police are called and the decide to set a few traps for the croc and see if the obvious has happened.

Croc is smart. Takes a week or so to catch the reptile. Turns out it was a small croc and the hooks they used were too big for him to wrap his jaws around. As a result, he was just chewing the meat off from around the hook. When they do get him to the beach, they chop him open and there is old mate looking a bit worse for wear. They take the bloke’s body and leave the croc carcass on the beach.

The second coincidence is that once a month or so there is a dance in the community hall. Being that it’s not a large community and there isn’t a lot to do, it’s a big night. Just so happens to fall on the night of day that the croc carcass was left on the beach of the bay. My mate his missus and a few mates are going because that’s what you do. On the way home, after a few drinks and in the early hours, they notice that the croc carcass is still left on the beach.

One says to the other “Well, the cops seem to have finished with it. We should skin it!” “Yeah that’s a great idea. Let’s do it”

So the boys get to collecting a knife and dragging the croc to the shed at the back of their house, which stands across the road from the beach on the bay where the croc carcass was left by the cops. (See all the coincidences). Turns out that skinning a croc is no easy task as the skin is very tough and the knife will get blunt in short time.

So they set up a work cycle where one bloke works on separating the skin from the meat, one takes the recently bluntened knife to the wife who is sharpening them in the kitchen and then returns with a sharp knife to continue with the job. This system is working well. Until night turns to dawn and the sun comes up.

Wifey notices the new, young, constable turn up in the police ute at the beach where the croc was. Get out, scratch his head and look a bit concerned. His one job was to collect the carcass and return to base. But the carcass was nowhere to be seen. Being a young pup, he applies his developing detective skills and follows the trail of the croc on the sand and the entrails across the road and into my mate’s shed. Being the smart woman, the wife, upon seeing the cop making his way to the back yard, washes her hands and goes to bed.

The cop comes around the corner, sees the boys a chopping and catches them in the act of interfering with a protected species. Because it is a protected species being interfered with, it automatically gets put on the court agenda. Because Groote Eylandt is remote, and it wasn’t a murder as such, they get a travelling magistrate through once every 6 months or so for the court to deal with the myriad of cases that occur.

The magistrate turns up, goes through all the other cases and gets to my mate who is on last. By this time, pretty much everyone who can be there is there to see how it goes.

Magistrate: “What’s the charge?”
Prosecutor: “Possession of and interference of a protected species.”
M: “And what is the maximum consequence for this charge?”
P: “$1000 per item and up to 1 year in prison m’lord.”
M: “What do you mean ‘per item’?”
P: “Well Your Honour, it is often the case that in cases where a protected species is interfered with, the perpetrators will cut the animal into parts for souvenirs, such as the teeth, feet and so on.”
M: “Mm-hmm. And how many ‘items’ did these miscreants have upon their person at the time of apprehension?”
P: “Just the one Your Honour. The crocodile was in one piece, minus the digestive system, which the police had taken the previous day.”

They got off with a 12 month suspended fine. The best part of this was being told by the three people involved and the wife and mate throwing in additional notes as the story went on. Golden.