Crocodile found by a boy hiding in a stream near his family

Stephanie Kirsop didn’t believe her son when he called to tell him a crocodile was lurking in a creek near their house.

The family lives in the temperate coastal city of Newcastle, which is 1,200 miles south of Australia’s crocodile habitat in the tropical north.

Lionel Saunders, 12, and his friends had spotted the meter-long juvenile crocodile on Saturday afternoon. Authorities were initially skeptical of the reported find, but had captured the elusive reptile on Sunday night.

“My son took videos because he was trying to convince me it was real and I didn’t believe him. It looked like a crocodile, but I was like, no, it’s a log,” Kirsop said Tuesday.

“He called me a little later and said, ‘I’m very serious, Mom. You need to come here and take a look,'” Kirsop said. “The whole trip I thought this was going to be a trick. They were going to laugh at me.”

When it arrived I had no doubt that it was a crocodile.

“There’s a little crocodile swimming in the stream where the local kids go fishing and sometimes the kids swim there. Wow,” Kirsop said.

He called a wildlife rescue service and was told that crocodiles do not live in the area. Kirsop sent his own photos and videos as proof.

Kirsop was referred to the Australian Reptile Park, which keeps its own crocodiles in a temperature-controlled environment.

Park manager Billy Collett said he suspected the images could have been fakes generated by artificial intelligence. But police confirmed there was a crocodile in Ironbark Creek.

“I was a little suspicious because we get a lot of phone calls. Nowadays with AI, it’s crazy,” Collett said.

He recognized that it was an Australian freshwater crocodile, or crocodylus johnstoni, a smaller and less dangerous species than the saltwater crocodileswhich can grow to more than 20 feet, weigh more than a ton, and have a bite force strong enough to crush a human skull.

Freshwater crocodiles can still be dangerous.

“They are capable of causing serious injuries,” Collett said of the smaller species.

Collett’s team caught the crocodile on Sunday night 2 miles from where it was first seen.

“I just wanted to get him out of there because he would have died in the winter,” Collett said. It is currently autumn in the southern hemisphere.

The alligator is healthy and will remain in the park until authorities decide where it should go permanently, Collett said. Crocodiles are protected under Australian law.

He suspects the crocodile was a pet that had been released into the wild after growing too large for a fish tank or becoming too dangerous.

Between December 1985 and April 2024, there were 34 non-fatal attacks and 14 fatal attacks by wild saltwater crocodiles in Queensland, Australia.

In August 2024, police said human remains were found inside a large crocodile. suspected of killing a tourist in Australia. A month earlier, a 12-year-old girl was abducted by a crocodile while swimming with her family in a stream in the Northern Territory. His remains were found days later and ranger He shot and killed a 14-foot crocodile.