In
news showing that Australia is just a harder-core, big-brother, version of
Florida, or proving the reverse, that Florida is the crazy little brother of
Australia, The West Australian reports that a saltwater crocodile shut down a beach in Western Australia by
surfing lazily through a wave, all day. It was mocking them. This was no idle threat. Saltwater crocs are huge, mean and
deadly. The Wikipedia Machine tells us
that they can get to be 23 feet long and 4400 pounds, and that they swim in the
open ocean on a frequent basis.
(Wikipedia). To
quote:
 |
| Surfing crocodile, mocking Florida with its puny snakes |
As its alternate name "sea-going crocodile" implies, this
species travels between areas separated by sea, or simply uses the relative
ease of travelling through water in order to circumvent long distances on the
same land mass, such as Australia. In a similar fashion to migratory
birds using thermal columns, saltwater crocodiles use ocean
currents to travel long distances.[31]
In a study, 20 crocodiles were tagged with satellite transmitters; 8 of these
crocodiles ventured out into open ocean, in which one of them travelled 590 km
(370 mi) in 25 days. Another specimen, a 4.84-m-long male, travelled
411 km (255 mi) in 20 days. Without having to move around much,
sometimes simply by floating, the current-riding behaviour allows for the
conservation of energy. They will even interrupt their travels, residing in
sheltered bays for a few days, when the current is against the desired
direction of travel, until the current changes direction.[31]
This bring us back to today’s story, on Cable Beach,
one of Western Australia’s tourism hotspots, a 4 meter (very large) dominant
male croc was hanging out in the surf in knee deep water. One Australian said, “It would be all red
rover if he got hold of you.” Indeed it
would.
Australians seem to have a healthier respect for
deadly things in their beaches than Floridians, who famously saw a surfing rattlesnake last fall, and thought it was “cool.” It was not.
Australians,
however, regularly lose people to saltwater crocs, like this wanker who tried
to swim across a croc infested river, ended predictably.
Aptly, he was swimming in a province in Australia
named Darwin. Australia, if you want to
swim with crocodiles, but be safer about, Darwin also has a theme park in which
you can swim in glass croc tank, called the “Cage of Death, which also seems
insane, yet gives you much less of a chance of winning a Darwin award. Seriously, why hasn’t Florida thought of this? Florida needs to catch up. It is behind it’s big brother, Australia
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