Editing Crocodile (section)

==={{anchor|hunting}}<!---redirect targets this anchor - do not remove--->Crocodile hunting and conservation===

[[Aboriginal Australians]] harvested eggs and hunted crocodiles in a sustainable way for many thousands of years. The [[Brinkin people]] (aka Marrithiyal) of the [[Daly River (Northern Territory)|Daly River]] in the [[Northern Territory]] (NT) used [[harpoon]]s and [[bamboo]], and even their own hands to capture crocodiles for food.<ref name=mash>{{cite web | last=Ryall | first=Jenni | title=Incredible video shows how crocodiles were hunted in Australia in 1949 |format=text + video, 10m.| website=[[Mashable]] | date=29 October 2021 | url=https://mashable.com/article/crocodile-hunters-australia | access-date=29 August 2023}}</ref> After settlement of northern Australia, in the late-19th and early 20th centuries, non-[[Indigenous Australians|Indigenous]] people killed individual crocodiles, mostly by locals to protect the population, or novelty-seeking visitors, or just opportunistically, so numbers were not noticeably reduced. From the 1930s, commercial hunting began, with Aboriginal people often employed to kill the crocodiles using traditional methods. From the 1940s to the 1960s, hunting began on a larger scale using [[.303 rifle]]s.<ref name=qha>{{cite web | title=Crocodile hunting | website=Queensland Historical Atlas | date=21 August 2013 | url=https://www.qhatlas.com.au/crocodile-hunting | access-date=29 August 2023}}</ref> They were hunted for leather, with  the skins shipped to plants in capital cities.<ref name=mash/> [[Western Australia]] banned hunting freshwater crocodiles in 1962 and saltwater crocodiles in 1970, while NT bans were brought in 1964 and 1971; [[Queensland]] did not pass such legislation. The federal government later banned the export of crocodile skins, which brought commercial hunting to an end in Queensland.<ref name=qha/> They have been a [[protected species]] since the 1970s, when numbers were down to approximately 3,000 in the NT at the lowest estimate. In 2021, after several attacks on humans by the "salties" and an estimated population of around 200,000 had been reached, Queensland politician [[Bob Katter]] called for the reintroduction of hunting.<ref name= vidler2021>{{cite web | last=Vidler | first=Adam | title=With more big crocs than ever, should hunting be allowed? | website=[[Nine News|9News]] | date=29 March 2021 | url=https://www.9news.com.au/national/crocodile-populations-rising-protected-hunting-bob-katter/023d28c2-ee46-436c-a790-a5c952efe160 | access-date=29 August 2023}}</ref>