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Wildlife rangers in Darwin in the Northern Territory are dealing with an increase in the number of unwanted pet crocodiles.
Young saltwater crocodiles have been found abandoned outside shopping centres, on golf courses, in suburban streets and even - to the consternation of swimmers - in outdoor public pools.
"I saw something run down the drain - I thought it was a lizard," said schoolboy Aaron Mills-Coppin, 16, who came across a 30cm long crocodile in a suburb of Darwin this week. "When I saw it was a croc, I decided to follow him because I didn't know what he was going to do."
After cornering the reptile he alerted local wildlife rangers.
In the Northern Territory, it is legal to buy a baby crocodile as a pet, with both saltwater crocodiles and the smaller freshwater species available.
But once the A$300 ($358) animals grow to 60cm long, owners are required by law to return them to the pet shop or crocodile farm where they were purchased.
"You don't get any money back, or a replacement baby croc, so there's really no incentive for people to return them," Tom Nichols, from the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service, said yesterday. "They are certainly not big enough to kill anyone, but if a young child finds one they could be bitten and lose a finger."
Collecting discarded crocs was a waste of rangers' time, Nichols said. "We're being called out at all hours of the day and night."
Rangers can tell the difference between wild crocodiles and former pets because the latter have a "scoot", or bump on the tail, removed.
But some of the crocodiles being found were from the wild.
The wild population of saltwater crocodiles has boomed since commercial hunting was banned in the 1970s, with an estimated 70,000 in the Northern Territory and thousands more in Queensland and Western Australia.
