Pilot captures wild moment crocodile hunts down lunch: 'Big boy'
The animal can be seen thrashing in the water before disappearing back out of sight.
The astonishing moment a crocodile was caught feasting on his lunch on the edge of a murky Queensland river has been caught on camera.
The “amazing” footage taken during a routine flight shows the large predator moving its tail in the water before suddenly thrashing an unidentifiable animal that is in its mouth to the ground, causing it to break in half. The croc then bites down repeatedly on his meal of choice before inhaling it and slipping back below the water’s surface and out of sight.
The video has captured the attention of almost 350,000 viewers since being posted by Townsville Helicopters — a family-owned charter service and aviation school — on Facebook on Friday.
“Croc bait,” the clip is captioned alongside a pig emoji, alluding to the croc’s prey. “Never a dull moment during flight training.” Yahoo News Australia has contacted Townsville Helicopters for comment.
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More than 1,000 stunned social media users have commented on or shared the “awesome” footage, with one woman describing the wild animal as a “big boy”. “Love watching that shear power of our crocodiles,” she added.
Numerous others said they couldn’t make out what the croc was eating because it was so fast, and pondered what river the helicopter was flying over at the time — although that is still unknown. “Which river is this in?” a man asked, prompting another person to respond: “The river you shouldn’t swim in!”
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“The way it just disappears after is so scary,” someone else said. “Crazy how at the end there, aside from the stirred up mud and the animal carcass, you would never know there was such a huge croc in the water. You can't even see it once it sinks in!” another agreed.
One local said the footage was a good reminder that given the “good wet season”, the crocs will be “found in places that you don’t expect to see them”. “So please be ‘Croc Wise’ when in the Australian Tropics,” they added.
It comes just days after a decapitated crocodile was found on a Far North Queensland beach, sparking fears the animals are being targeted out of “retribution”.
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