Researchers map crocodile migration with genetic testing
New DNA research is showing how Saltwater Crocodiles are spreading through the Top End of the nation as their populations continue to soar. Researchers from Charles Darwin University say the findings can be used to map the carnivorous creatures in populated areas.
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00:00 They're the apex predator lurking just under the surface of top end waterways.
00:08 But finding exactly how saltwater crocs spread up and down the coastline has long tested
00:14 scientists.
00:15 Some of them came from a long way away.
00:16 We get some from the Teewees, we get some from Arnhem Land, even all the way as far
00:22 as Arifura Swamp.
00:24 Now researchers at Charles Darwin University are using croc DNA from Australia and the
00:29 Asia Pacific to track which crocs are finding their way into Darwin Harbour, an area patrolled
00:35 by wildlife rangers.
00:36 If we can work out whether there are particular locations that crocodiles come from we can
00:40 think about whether there are different ways that we might manage them.
00:44 The research reveals Darwin's unwelcome visitors are mostly from river systems between
00:49 one and two hundred kilometres away.
00:52 Experts say being able to pinpoint their origins could have practical uses to control the species
00:58 and help keep people safe.
01:00 You know real people have been torn to pieces by these things so it's not as though it's
01:06 a mundane theoretical biological question, it's a humanitarian side to it.
01:12 We could direct a little bit more egg collection to those areas so there's fewer little crocodiles
01:16 being born.
01:18 There are more than 100,000 crocodiles located right across the northern part of Australia.
01:23 This research may have only used genetic samples from a select few, but it's hoped that in
01:27 the future that will help scientists better understand how these creatures migrate between
01:32 rivers and across oceans.
01:34 To me if they keep going in the direction they've gone for the last three or four hundred
01:39 kilometres they're going to end up in Timor Leste.
01:43 Sinking their teeth into this genetic challenge, trying to uncover even more about these scaly
01:49 survivors.
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