Extension Report 1 Hartleys Crocodiles

On Monday 4th February, my family and I went to visit Hartley Crocodiles Adventures while in Australia. While there we went on a river cruise and saw several crocodiles, as well as watching them being fed. This river is man-made but mirrors amazingly the natural habitat of a crocodile, letting us see the 19 crocodiles living there in their own environment, and snapping their jaws as they rose out of the water to get the food offered by the guide! This ride was very entertaining, not made less so by the Australian guide cracking constant Kiwi jokes! After the cruise we proceeded to the arena to watch the crocodile attack show, where one of the keepers got into an enclosure with an untamed crocodile, and began to show us how crocodiles attack. As he dodged and teased the crocodile with a dead chicken, I learnt that crocodiles are masters of ambush, and will hide underwater near banks until a prey is close enough, then attack. Once ahold of their prey, the crocodile will then begin to pull it into deep water to drown it. However the crocodile has not got much pulling force, and so relies on two tactics to pull the prey in, violently thrashing its head from side to side, or doing the crocodile roll, where they roll making their prey lose hold of the bank. The keeper also got across to us his passion of crocodiles, and described them as opportunistic feeders, ie will eat whatever they can, and do not deserve the bad reputation they have in some places. I just watched in awe as the keeper danced around, obviously nervous and wary of the huge creature in front of him. At the end of our tour we got to see and pet a koala bear, which were adorable!! I learnt that koalas can sleep 16 hours a day, and even more! This is because the eucalyptus leaves they eat take a while to digest and do not provide much energy, and so koalas must rest and move the least they can to conserve energy. Overall a very exciting and informative trip! Marie Poff (12VT)