{"id":513761,"date":"2026-03-04T13:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T13:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513761\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T13:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T13:05:13","slug":"crocodile-found-in-australian-creek-2000km-from-tropical-habitat-thought-it-was-a-log","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513761\/","title":{"rendered":"Crocodile found in Australian creek 2,000km from tropical habitat: \u2018Thought it was a log\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Stephanie Kirsop didn\u2019t believe her son when he phoned to say a crocodile<\/a> was lurking in a creek near their home.<\/p>\n

The family live in the temperate coastal city of Newcastle<\/a>, which is 2,000km (1,200 miles) south of Australia\u2019s crocodile habitat in the tropical north.<\/p>\n

Lionel Saunders, 12, and his friends had spotted the juvenile metre-long (39-inch-long) croc early on Saturday afternoon. Authorities were initially sceptical of the reported find but had caught the elusive reptile by Sunday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son took videos because he was trying to convince me it was real, and I didn\u2019t believe him. It did look like a crocodile, but I was like, no it\u2019s a log,\u201d Ms Kirsop said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe rang me back a little bit later, and he\u2019s like: \u2018I\u2019m so serious mom. You have to come down here and have a look,\u2019\u201d Ms Kirsop said. \u201cThe whole drive down there I\u2019m thinking this is going to be a trick. They\u2019re going to laugh at me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was in no doubt that it was a crocodile when she arrived.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

The freshwater crocodile in question (Australian Reptile Park via AP)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a little crocodile just swimming around in the creek where local kids go to fish and sometimes kids swim in there. Wow,\u201d Ms Kirsop said.<\/p>\n

She phoned a wildlife rescue service and was told crocodiles don\u2019t live in the area. Ms Kirsop sent her own photos and video as proof.<\/p>\n

Ms Kirsop was referred to the Australian<\/a> Reptile Park, which keeps its own crocodiles in a temperature-controlled environment.<\/p>\n

Park manager Billy Collett said he suspected the images might have been artificial intelligence-generated fakes. But police confirmed there was a croc in Ironbark Creek.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a bit suspicious because we get a lot of phone calls. These days with AI, it\u2019s just so crazy,\u201d Mr Collett said.<\/p>\n

\"Billy<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Billy Collett holds a freshwater crocodile caught in Ironbark Creek near Newcastle, Australia (Australian Reptile Park via AP)<\/p>\n

He recognised it was an Australian<\/a> freshwater crocodile, or Crocodylus Johnstoni, a smaller and less dangerous species than saltwater crocodiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re capable of inflicting a serious injury,\u201d Mr Collett said of the smaller species.<\/p>\n

Mr Collett\u2019s team caught the croc on Sunday night, 3 kilometres (2 miles) from where it was first spotted. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to get him out of there because he would\u2019ve perished in winter,\u201d Mr Collett said. It is currently autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

The croc is healthy and will stay at the park until authorities decide where it should go permanently, Mr Collett said. <\/p>\n

Crocs<\/a> are protected under Australian law.<\/p>\n

He suspects the croc was a pet that had been released into the wild after growing too big for a fish tank or becoming too dangerous. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-513761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}