Huge crocodile spotted on Qld shore metres from beachgoers
A crocodile has wandered from the water to a popular Cairns beach much to the shock of beachgoers.
The animal was seen sticking out of the surf at Kewarra Beach on Friday afternoon following a lengthy stroll from a beach further south.
Lisa Worsley filmed the curious croc on her afternoon walk and believes it may have made the “exhausting” trek from a nearby creek before hitting the sand and surf.
She told Yahoo7 she normally takes her dog for walks at the beach but didn’t on this occasion.
“(It) wasn’t bothering anyone,” she said.
“My dog always swims in there as well and obviously we look constantly, but my dog been swimming there for three years and no problems at all.”
Ms Worsley said there is a creek at the other end of the beach, and the croc had been tracked from Holloways Beach, about 12km south.
“It must have been exhausted,” she said.
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Surf Life Saving Queensland regional director Rob Davidson told the Cairns Post Holloways Beach had to be closed for about four hours following the croc sighting.
He added the crocodile went on a trek and was sighted at Trinity Beach, south of Kewarra, at around lunch time before making its way further north.
Mr Davidson said no crocodiles had been spotted on Saturday.
An article published by the University of Queensland in 2010 explains saltwater crocs "love to surf" allowing them to cover "large stretches of the sea despite being poor swimmers".
Dr Hamish Campbell, from UQ’s School of Biological Sciences, along with researchers from Australia Zoo and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, found crocodiles ride ocean currents to cross large areas of open sea "like a surfer catching a wave".
“The data showed that crocodiles always began long-distance travel within an hour of the tide changing, allowing them to go with the flow, and that they halted their journeys by hauling out on to the river bank when the tide was against them,” Dr Campbell said.
He referenced two satellite-tagged crocs; one which left the Kennedy River and travelled 590km over 25 days down the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, and another which travelled more than 411km in only 20 days from the east coast of the peninsula through the Torres Straits to the Wenlock river on the west coast.
He added it's unlikely crocodiles travel across "vast tracts of ocean".
