When he’s not behind the bar, there’s nothing Steve Baldwin likes better than spending time with Sam and Agro. His pets came with the pub when he bought it, Baldwin admits, and then there is his family’s long history with crocodiles.
Although his ancestors spent much of their time shooting crocs in the Australian outback, counting themselves among the hunters who reduced their number to fewer than 3,000 in the north of the vast country before the practice was banned half a century ago, Baldwin is one of the first to be allowed to keep them as a pet.
Baldwin is these days among those legally allowed to keep crocodiles as pets — after the Northern Territory government’s decision a year ago to begin reissuing pet permits for the captive predators, a move hotly opposed by some conservationists.
More than 60 new permits to keep pet crocodiles have been issued in recent months in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, which is almost seven times the size of the UK and where an estimated 100,000 crocodiles now live in the wild.
Stephen Baldwin, 70, feeds Sam, a huge 22-year-old saltwater crocodile that he keeps at the back of his property
ALANA HOLMBERG FOR THE TIMES
Baldwin’s crocs — Sam is more than 3.5m long and Agro is slightly smaller — live alongside his tiny pub in the hamlet of Larrimah, about 300 miles south of Darwin.
Australia’s foremost crocodile scientist, Professor Grahame Webb, is among those who supported the restoration of crocodile-keeping. “Every person that has a pet crocodile is a bit of an ambassador for crocodiles,” Webb told The Times from Darwin. “So they become, in the community, our little friend — not that bloody crocodile. Having a pet crocodile is not an oddball thing.”
Baldwin said: “They came with the pub, but, you know, I’m from the territory and we go back. My family was shooting crocs back in the 1960s and 1970s before all that became illegal so I always had lots to do with crocs.”
The pub, which Baldwin bought seven years ago, is the focal point for Larrimah’s 20 or so inhabitants. When Baldwin took over, Sam was still under suspicion by some over the sudden disappearance a year earlier of the Larrimah resident Paddy Moriarty, a 70-year-old Irishman. His disappearance gripped Australia, especially after police said everybody in Larrimah was a person of interest in the ultimately fruitless hunt for Moriarty.
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At least 44 people have been killed by crocodiles since they have been protected but Moriarty was not among them, Baldwin insists. He still faces questions about Moriarty’s disappearance and Sam’s possible role from travellers on the 1,700-mile Stuart Highway that passes Larrimah on its lonely route through the central Australian desert.
“The geriatric tourists we have coming in ask silly questions all the time,” said Baldwin. “Like whether Paddy is in the pies.”
Crocodiles are now permitted to be kept as pets
Trevor Sullivan, 62, feeds Big Jack, one of 13 crocodiles he owns and keeps on his property in Batchelor, Northern Territory
ALANA HOLMBERG FOR THE TIMES
About an hour’s drive south of Darwin, Trevor Sullivan shares his rainforest home with a 5m male crocodile named Shah. Believed to be more than 80 years old, the monster was one of eight saltwater and three less dangerous freshwater crocodiles that Sullivan has kept as pets. He is now trying to slim down his collection.
He wants to sell his forest home and mango tree orchard and is looking for a buyer who will care for his remaining pets, including Shah. Most are crocs he rescued from the Northern Territory’s commercial farms, where they are held captive until being slaughtered for their skins, used for expensive handbags and other products.
Sullivan and one of his dogs at the freshwater spring on his property, which is for sale
ALANA HOLMBERG FOR THE TIMES
“Crocodiles are in a class of their own,” said Sullivan. “They’re up there with dinosaurs and dragons and when you’ve had a crocodile, not much else comes close to cutting it.
“I have spent the last 15 years bringing back the wildlife from years of abuse by poisons and sprays and pharmacies. I just saw it as a chance where we could give back to the animals that gave us our lifetime, our livelihoods,” he said of his property in the Eva Valley outside Darwin.
Sullivan with three more of his saltwater crocodiles
ALANA HOLMBERG FOR THE TIMES
This week, Matt Wright, the Netflix and Apple TV reality star who specialised in catching the outback’s large wild crocodiles, also put his luxury Darwin home on the market. It comes with his 15ft pet crocodile, Spicy.
The sale follows the 46-year-old Wright’s conviction in a Darwin court last month of conspiring to cover up events that preceded a catastrophic helicopter crash that killed his co-star. Wright made the offer to include his pet crocodile in the sale of the house in a post on Instagram. “If you really, really want the place, I’ll even leave ya with Spicy,” he said. “If you really want the place, you get him with it.”
Sullivan pets the snout of Shah, a 125-year-old crocodile
ALANA HOLMBERG FOR THE TIMES
Those who apply for permits to keep pet crocodiles in the Northern Territory must provide evidence of the animal’s security and their ability to care for their pets.
“Having a pet crocodile is one of those unique Territory lifestyle things that happen up here,” the Northern Territory’s minister for wildlife, Marie-Clare Boothby, said after the government announced the surge in pet crocodile permits.
Matt Wright’s pet croc, Spicy
However, opinion remains sharply divided across the rest of Australia, where pet crocodiles are banned — although the southern state of Victoria does allow the keeping of small crocodiles.
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In Queensland, which, along with the Northern Territory, has a large wild crocodile population, MPs last month defeated a motion to cull wild crocodiles and to allow safari-style hunting parties.
It followed a series of fatal crocodile attacks, including the death of a young doctor who slipped into a Queensland river last year while walking with his wife and children. He was taken by a large crocodile.
On Wednesday, Bob Irwin, the father of Australia’s famous “Crocodile Hunter”, Steve Irwin, retaliated after an American influencer posted videos of himself catching crocodiles in Far North Queensland.
Mike Holston — also known as “The Real Tarzan” on social media — on Friday shared a clip of himself jumping out of a boat and chasing a freshwater crocodile through ankle-deep water before diving on it. He is seen laughing as he holds the reptile around the neck and claims “this is what dreams are made of”. The 31-year-old, with 15.5 million followers on Instagram alone, said he had dreamt of coming to Australia and seeing crocodiles up close since he was a child.
Irwin said: “People visiting our country need to respect our wildlife, or they need to be booted out the door.”
For Sullivan, however, there is still one pet that rises head and shoulders above a croc — a dog. “You can’t beat a dog,” he said. “The dogs are kings. You know, they always will be there. But a crocodile is there when you want something special, something earth-cracking, a crowd-pleaser that does party tricks and can crush up a pig.”