Keeping a snappy predator as a backyard pet in Australia’s Northern Territory will be made easier under new guidelines on crocodile ownership that restore a right seen as part of a “unique Territory lifestyle”.<\/p>\n
But while the state government has scaled up plans to encourage ownership of crocs, reptile lovers in Victoria face a ban on keeping them as pets.<\/p>\n
In the NT there were 63 people already licensed to keep 123 crocodiles, said NT Parks and Wildlife Minister Marie-Clare Boothby on Friday.<\/p>\n
“It’s proof our unique Territory lifestyle is alive and thriving.”<\/p>\n
The NT government is inviting Territorians to have their say on new safety and welfare guidelines to make owning a pet croc simpler and safer.<\/p>\n
The proposed regulations in the Dangerous Animal Guideline – Crocodiles as Pets focused on animal welfare, biosecurity and public safety, Boothby said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“We’re backing responsible pet ownership by cutting red tape and making it easier than ever for Territorians to safely keep a pet croc.”<\/p>\n
Boothby said after the previous Labor government scrapped pet crocodile permits in 2024, the Country Liberal Party government made a commitment to restore that right.<\/p>\n
The proposed regulations would strengthen guidelines already in place to own a pet crocodile.<\/p>\n
The crocs will receive a unique identification marking, owners will be charged a $299 fee for a five-year permit and there will be a AU$100 (NZ$115)-an-hour recovery fee if departmental staff need to capture an escaped reptile.<\/p>\n
Updated enclosure standards include a lockable door and an isolating section to reduce human-crocodile interaction during cleaning or vet checks.<\/p>\n
In Victoria, the government is implementing new rules that ban anyone from acquiring a croc as a pet.<\/p>\n
Anyone owning a crocodile will be able to keep them until their pets die.<\/p>\n
Michael Donnelly, president of Animal Care Australia representing animal hobbyists, said there had been a lack of consultation on the ban.<\/p>\n
He was unaware of any cases of people being attacked by crocs in Victoria or of croc owners being charged under animal cruelty laws.<\/p>\n
“Why, suddenly, after decades of being able to keep crocodiles are we no longer able to keep crocodiles in Victoria,” he told AAP.<\/p>\n
“Pretty much our opinion and our view is that’s because of the animal rights infiltration that is in Victoria.”<\/p>\n
Donnelly said his organisation supported keeping native animals as pets as long as the appropriate regulations and licensing systems were followed.<\/p>\n
“In Victoria, we just go straight down the path of ‘let’s ban it’ rather than deal with any issues.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keeping a snappy predator as a backyard pet in Australia’s Northern Territory will be made easier under new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[50,85,111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-134472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-australia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}