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Rob Griffith

A man was eaten by a crocodile in Australia while boating with his family

Since the introduction of protection laws, the crocodile population in Australia has grown to 75,000-100,000.

HUMAN REMAINS HAVE been recovered in the hunt for a man snatched by a crocodile in front of terrified relatives on a boat trip in northern Australia.

The man, 62, was taken from his boat on the South Alligator River in northern Australia’s Kakadu national park late Saturday afternoon as his wife, son and daughter-in-law looked on.

Northern Territory police sergeant Andrew Hocking said two large crocodiles were shot and cut open by search crews today at the waterhole where the man was last seen.

“One of those crocs was later examined and a quantity of human remains was recovered,” Hocking told reporters, adding that the creature had been 4.7m long.

The remains were yet to be formally identified, but Hocking said the animal was recovered just 1.5km from the attack site.

“The difficulty in this location is getting in large boats, we’re only able to bring in small boats. But using the expertise of the Territory Parks and Wildlife staff, they managed to help us bring it to a conclusion,” he said.

“Thankfully this was carried out and (the remains) recovered very, very quickly.”

Crocodile expert Graeme Webb said it was unusual for a crocodile to attack at this time of the year, when Australia experiences cooler weather.

“I don’t know what has happened in this case but it just sounds horrific. It’s just awful, you just can’t begin to understand how (the man’s family) must feel.”

While the man’s wife and daughter-in-law drove two hours to the nearest lodge to raise the alarm his son remained in the area searching for his father, which Superintendent Bob Harrison earlier described as “obviously traumatising”

“Anyone’s heart would go out to the family in that sort of incident,” Harrison told ABC radio.

Crocodiles are a common feature of Australia’s tropical north, and their numbers have increased steadily since the introduction of protection laws in 1971, with government estimates putting the population at 75,000-100,000.

Saltwater crocs can grow up to seven metres long and weigh more than a tonne.

Saturday’s attack is Australia’s first fatality since January, when a 12-year-old boy was taken by a crocodile in the Kakadu national park, a sprawling World Heritage-listed nature and cultural reserve in Australia’s Top End.

Another boy suffered bite wounds in that incident as he fought the crocodile off.

According to the international CrocBITE database of attacks set up at Australia’s Charles Darwin University last year, there have been 66 fatalities globally so far in 2014.

The database was set up with the aim of firming up anecdotal reports that harmful or fatal incidents are increasing. There were 76 fatalities recorded by CrocBITE over the same period in 2013.

Read: 11-year-old boy eaten by crocodile in Papua New Guinea >

Read: Crocodile snatches 12-year-old boy in Australia >

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:32 PM

    That’s the problem with todays media reporting of live events, they are all so busy trying to get one up on the other channels that they don’t think for a minute about what they are saying. Imagine hiding out from some langer trying to kill you only for some idiot reporter to come on air and say “oh by the way there’s 4 hostages hiding out in the cold room”!

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    Mute Lad
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:58 PM

    If you can get your hands on “the human face of big data”, there’s an interesting piece on how terrorists use data and how in more prolific hostage taking countries it’s now quite common for live selected killings to take place using human search engines and media outlets for info. Or even waiting to carry out an attack to see who is in their area. Next gen terrorism. Off point but interesting.

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    Mute Avina Laaf
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    Apr 4th 2015, 12:28 AM

    Its not just a modern thing – during a ground stand-off following an aircraft hijacking (in the 1970′s I think) special forces had approached the plane via a blind spot to launch a surprise raid on the hijackers. Unfortunately events were being broadcast on live radio and the hijackers were listening in and knew exactly what was about to happen, with disastrous results.

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    Mute David Fitzpatrick
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    Apr 4th 2015, 1:35 AM

    Amen.
    What Globalist Murdoch said about the Sydney Siege comes to mind.
    Bloodthirsty vampire.
    http://www.thejournal.ie/murdoch-tweet-sydney-1836603-Dec2014/

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    Mute Paul Furey
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:33 PM

    Good move. Hopefully the media will cop on a bit more. If some aren’t making it up they are getting it all wrong.

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:37 PM

    Fox News springs to mind!

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    Mute jenni
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:32 PM

    About time the tv media were taken to task, imagine if that lunatic had been watching the live stream and did go down to the chiller they were hiding in…unthinkable acts would have ensued.
    In this day and age you would think tv news channels would have more cop on…but I suppose being more and more sensationalist is worth more than a life in this day and age. How many more lives would have been saved that day if that sick man was not put under the spotlight?
    Its sad really that there is an appetite for this sensationalism.

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:37 PM

    Apparently the gunman was watching but must have missed that report. The cop is to blame here as well as he shouldn’t have told the media anything in the first place. With today’s communications it would be easy for any gunman to have someone else watching TV, twitter etc and keeping them informed of what was going on. Best keep the media away from they area and in the dark until it’s all over.

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    Mute Al Ca
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:05 PM

    I wonder if that journalist would have been so eager to broadcast that information if one of his own relatives was hiding in that freezer?…..I think not…….which just goes to show how little empathy some journalists have with other people in deadly situations.

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    Mute brian magee
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 11:01 PM

    I wonder what nationality and religion the editor / producer : journalist are?

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    Mute Alan
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:40 PM

    It’s like that film Night Crawler. Ratings are worth more to these stations than human lives. Check it out. Jake Gyllenhaal is great in it.

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    Mute Rowan Murphy
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:15 PM

    I was thinking more about the reporter from Die Hard and Die Hard 2.

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    Mute miserable now.
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:20 PM

    Yes. Just what I was thinking. Great movie.
    Some of these”repoters” are sociopaths.

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    Mute Patrick J O'CONNOR
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:21 PM

    Look at the way they vilify Israel for its conduct in the war against Hamas terror,though experts in this field attest that Israel took the most extraordinary efforts to keep civilian casualties at a minimum while Hamas used its own people as shields in some cases. But vilifying Israel feeds the Jew-hatred and sells so ‘to hell with the facts go for what sells’.
    See excerpt from Colonel Kemp’s report
    –Three days ago I spoke to an Israeli pilot that told me that the same morning he had aborted an enemy target a total of 17 times because there were civilians in the target zone, and eventually he abandoned the operation. I asked him, was that not frustrating? His answer was simply no. And that to me, is one of the best things about the IAF – that the last very thing they want to do is bomb a target and have that on their conscience for the rest of their lives. And it was the same thing with infantry soldiers. I spoke to soldiers who have been fighting in Gaza, and several of them said to me: ‘We know what the rules of engagement are but even without them, it is always on our minds that we cannot kill civilians.’ See for them, this has nothing to do with orders, it’s just always there at the forefront. We’re talking about [reservists who are] simply artists, metal-workers, musicians, they are not killers. They have absolutely no desire to kill civilians. In fact, in terms of civilian casualties, the attitude of IDF solders is the exact mirror image of the way they’re portrayed to the world.
    http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/30/col-richard-kemp-israeli-pilot-aborted-gaza-strike-17-times-to-protect-civilians-jewish-people-should-be-proud-of-the-state-of-israel-interview/
    Happy Easter All!

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    Mute Elias Khoury
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 10:57 PM

    Truly and accurately stated. You’ll get red thumbs galore, no doubt, Patrick, but that just goes to show that many people don’t like the truth messing up their paradigm.

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    Mute Patrick J O'CONNOR
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    Apr 4th 2015, 2:11 AM

    @Elias Khoury! Thanks for Elias’ sentiment. Your prediction was so but not so bad and some of them even red-thumbed Elias to spite me.Laughable isn’t it!
    I worry not but to speak the truth as I see it. People have a very healthy scepticism about the newsmedia here and it’s just a matter of time before they cotton-on to the con-job the Hamas/PLO and other Jihadders have pulled on them via the self-seeking media.
    Additionally, Jew-hatred is on the wane however imperceptible it seems.
    Happy Easter…

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