{"id":31497,"date":"2025-07-30T03:10:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/31497\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T03:10:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:10:22","slug":"goldie-the-crocodile-found-on-gold-coast-street-relocated-to-rockhampton-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/31497\/","title":{"rendered":"Goldie the crocodile found on Gold Coast street relocated to Rockhampton Zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zane Hemmings was riding his motorbike in Austinville, a hinterland suburb of the Gold Coast, back in March when he noticed something on the road.<\/p>\n

“I’m the kind of person who pulls over for animals and always stops and checks,” Mr Hemmings said.<\/p>\n

“I thought I’d almost hit it.”<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Zane Hemmings was riding his motorbike when he found the baby crocodile on the road. (ABC Gold Coast: Mark Rigby)<\/p>\n

His friend Lachlan, who was riding with him, initially thought it was a lizard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the pair soon realised it was a crocodile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“My immediate reaction was just shock and more curious as to how it got there really, because the chances of coming across something like that and in the wild are next to none,” Mr Hemmings said.<\/p>\n

\"60cm<\/p>\n

The baby crocodile was first taken to the environment department’s Moggill facility in Brisbane. (Supplied: Department of Environment)<\/p>\n

Wild crocodiles are not found on the Gold Coast, so the pair immediately reported it to the Department of Environment.<\/p>\n

“I’ve seen them at zoos, but never seen one in the wild,” Mr Hemmings said.<\/p>\n

They looked around in the bushes nearby with spotlights but found no other animals or signs of where it came from.<\/p>\n

Wildlife rangers retrieved the animal and assessed it in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

Aside from some scar tissue on the tip of its tail, the two-month-old crocodile was in good condition and well fed.<\/p>\n

A new home<\/p>\n

The crocodile could not be released back into the wild as it was unknown where it had been and the long-term health impacts of being so far from its native habitat.<\/p>\n

Rockhampton Zoo, located in natural crocodile territory, was selected as its new home.<\/p>\n

Rockhampton Zoo curator Tegan Gargett said the crocodile, now named Goldie, was settling in and “eating well” after being transferred in May.<\/p>\n

\"Young<\/p>\n

Tegan Gargett says Goldie is adjusting well to its new home. (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

“We don’t know his back story, we don’t know what he’s been through, but he’s doing fine now that he’s here,” Ms Gargett said.<\/p>\n

“He’s doing all the things that a crocodile should do.<\/p>\n

“We’re glad that he was found before it got really cold and into winter because he would probably have shut down.”<\/p>\n

Ms Gargett said Goldie was in quarantine at the council-run free zoo.<\/p>\n

\"small<\/p>\n

Zookeepers will monitor the crocoile’s health and behaviour as it gets used to a new home. (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

“Reptiles in particular have quite a long quarantine period because they don’t tend to show any signs of issues or disease or anything like that for a really long time,” Ms Gargett said.<\/p>\n

“He will be in quarantine for quite a few months and then he is actually going stay off display for a fair while \u2026 he actually is too small to go into our main display enclosure.”<\/p>\n

A family of crocs<\/p>\n

The Rockhampton Zoo<\/a> is home to resident saltwater crocodile The Colonel, who is a crowd favourite at an impressive 450 kilograms and 4.3 metres long.<\/p>\n

In a separate enclosure is freshwater crocodile Hahn.<\/p>\n

The zoo used to have a third crocodile, a female freshwater named Vicky, however she died of old age in 2021.<\/p>\n

And while the new crocodile has been christened Goldie, its gender is not known yet.<\/p>\n

“Obviously found on the Gold Coast but also it fit into the Aussie theme that we’ve had with our freshwater crocodiles over the years, which is that they’ve actually been named after beers,” Ms Gargett said.<\/p>\n

Investigations ongoing<\/p>\n

Freshwater crocodiles are not native to the Gold Coast and the Department of Environment believes it is likely an escaped pet or illegally taken from the wild.<\/p>\n

\"small<\/p>\n

Goldie was in good health, aside from some small scarring on its tail. (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

No-one has yet been fined and anyone with information is encouraged to contact the department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Information can be reported anonymously.<\/p>\n

Offenders could face a maximum court penalty of $16,131 for taking a native animal from the wild under the Nature Conservation Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zane Hemmings was riding his motorbike in Austinville, a hinterland suburb of the Gold Coast, back in March…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,18994,11630,29502,29500,2485,29503,29501,29499,128,338,25717],"class_list":["post-31497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baby","tag-crocodile","tag-escaped","tag-freshwater-crocodile","tag-gold-coast","tag-goldie","tag-pet","tag-rockhampton-zoo","tag-science","tag-wildlife","tag-zoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}