MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Stephanie Kirsop didn\u2019t believe her son when he phoned to say a crocodile was lurking in a creek near their home.<\/p>\n
The family live in the temperate coastal city of Newcastle, which is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Australia’s crocodile habitat in the tropical north.<\/p>\n
Lionel Saunders, 12, and his friends had spotted the juvenile meter-long (39-inch-long) croc early Saturday afternoon. Authorities were initially skeptical 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 Kirsop said 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 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 it was a crocodile when she arrived.<\/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 Kirsop said.<\/p>\n
She phoned a wildlife rescue service and was told crocodiles don\u2019t live in the area. Kirsop sent her own photos and video as proof.<\/p>\n
Kirsop was referred to the Australian 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 Collett said.<\/p>\n
He recognized it was an Australian 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 Collett said of the smaller species.<\/p>\n
Collett\u2019s team caught the croc Sunday night 3 kilometers (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 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, Collett said. Crocs 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 too dangerous. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Stephanie Kirsop didn\u2019t believe her son when he phoned to say a crocodile was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[159780,167611,163351,157796,2724,79,201],"class_list":["post-503436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ap-climate-and-environment","tag-ap-oddities","tag-ap-science","tag-ap-world-news","tag-associated-press","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}