HUGE AUSSIE CROCS in New Zealand- there story

Way back in early 2005 we commenced working through the process to allow us to import Scar and Goldie. We were keen to round off our other tropical exhibits with two of the most impressive animals on earth – the giant Australian Salt Water Crocodile. A living dinosaur and, as the late Steve Irwin put it “THE apex predator”.

A mountain of paperwork has been accumulated and various reports and studies have been arrived at over the intervening period - one hell of a perseverance test that has required an inordinate amount of time, energy and financial resources to get to where we are today. MAF Biosecurity have been excellent to deal with and did all they could to smooth the process and facilitate the importation – but it was still one awfully long and difficult process.

In 2008 we began scouring Aussie for the most suitable crocs. Whilst there are plenty of salt water crocs in Aussie not many of them are suitable. They have to pass the MAF Biosecurity requirements, they have to have a suitable disposition (yes, crocs do have different personalities with some being just too aggressive and far too unpredictable ) and they have to be available for purchase. This entailed several trips to Aus before we finally settled on two big fellahs up in the Northern Territory. They were both whiling their time away on a large croc farm.

We had tentatively named them Shrek and Scar. Shrek as he had a lovely green shade to his skin and Scar as he had a scar in his nose which, we were told, came about after he forced himself through a corrugated iron fence to kill a male croc on the other side.

Unfortunately Shrek failed his health test and so we were left needing to find another suitable animal. We eventually found Charlie up in North Queensland.

So it was that Scar and Charlie were flown over to Butterfly Creek on 22nd April 2009. We aren’t aware of two crocs being similarly crated and shifted together at the same time before – and certainly not on an Air Force Hercules.

We approached the Air Force to help as Darwin is a military air base and we were aware that the RNZAF frequently come back to NZ via Darwin.

There was a significant animal welfare issue in that such big animals are prone to quickly becoming stressed and can even die if not transported in a careful and timely manner.

The commercial air routes out of Darwin bunny hopped around airports before arriving in Auckland.  We were hoping that a. RNZAF plane would be coming back with some spare room – and so it transpired. The Air Force were absolutely brilliant to deal with. A great bunch of guys.



So here we are ------the two largest predators in New Zealand enjoying the 5 star comfort of their new enclosures at Butterfly Creek.



These guys now enjoy much, much larger pools (heated to 32 degrees), concrete basking pads complete with under-floor heating and generous grassed and soft landscaped “relax” areas.



The exhibit is themed as a snapshot of a typical Northern Territory landscape (with Tourism Northern Territory being a sub-sponsor) and is fully enclosed to protect them from the colder winds and rain.


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