Charlie an angel despite dad's lost hand, croc owner says (Feature)

By Sid Astbury Dec 23, 2010, 3:02 GMT

Sydney - John Casey can't imagine life without the crocodile his father brought home to their Queensland farm almost half a century ago.

She went with them on family holidays, sharing the back seat with the kids or sitting up front with Dad, her head out of Alf's driver's side window.

'We used to get some looks,' Casey chuckled.

When Alf Casey died last year, Charlie passed to John in the will. But the Queensland state government is refusing to transfer the ownership permit from father to son until lots of conditions are met.

Casey suspects the new ownership rules are designed to be too hard to meet and intended to lever Charlie out of the only home she has ever known and into a commercial crocodile farm.

He has engaged a lawyer to help in the fight to keep Charlie in Proserpine, a town of 1,400 a 90-minute drive north of Mackay.

'She's always had an enclosure of her own,' Casey told Brisbane's Courier Mail. 'If they try to put her in with another croc, she'll either kill or be killed.'

Officials say a caravan park has opened near the Casey home since the initial permit was issued and there would be mayhem if 3-metre Charlie ever escaped.

Casey counters that Charlie can't possibly get out from a concrete and steel pen, which is right next to the house.

'It's like your pet cat or dog,' he said of the battle for Charlie. 'If someone wants to come and take it away, you'd want to jump up and down about it too.'

Proserpine folk, like Anglican vicar Chris Yule, are getting behind the campaign.

'Charlie's comfortable in her own territory there on the farm,' he said. 'It's the bureaucrats. They're making the wrong decision. They want to put her in a zoo or in a breeding farm and use her as a money-making mating machine.'

The notion that Charlie is a harmless family pet like any other is disputed by officials. They have hard evidence that crocodiles can't be tamed and will bite even the hand that feeds them.

Casey admits that Charlie tore off one of his dad's hands in 1986, saying she mistook it for a fish.

'She opened her mouth after she grabbed it, but Dad couldn't get his hand out because it was smashed and caught on the teeth,' he recalled. 'Then she closed her jaws again and dragged him and did a roll. His left hand tore off just above the wrist. She opened her mouth and he got it out, but it was just hanging by a bit of skin.'

Local builder Tom Casey reckons crocodiles have become a huge menace in Proserpine in the last 20 years - and wants the federal government to change the law to allow a cull - but he is not calling for Charlie to be moved as her enclosure is secure and she has a responsible owner.

'I never heard of a crocodile around Mackay when I moved here 20 years ago but now you hear of them all the time,' he told the German Press Agency dpa. 'When you go fishing at night you can hear them bellowing or barking or whatever it is they do.'

Crocodile hunting was banned in 1971 for fear the reptiles were being driven to extinction. Since then, numbers have come back from a low of 3,000 and more and more of them are venturing further up waterways as they fight for territory.

'Suddenly, big salties are turning up where we haven't seen them before,' Graeme Webb, the far-north's top crocodile expert, said. 'It's become a real problem because in other areas where crocodiles are more prominent everybody knows they are there and take precautions.'

But most are making a distinction between Charlie and her cousins in the wild.

Edward Jones, writing to the Courier Mail, recalled living in Proserpine when Alf was still alive - and still had both hands.

'Alf and Charlie were very popular with all the townsfolk and the two of them were best mates,' he said. 'Do you think Alf looked after this croc for some 47 years and never passed on anything to John?'

Jones reckons that Charlie and John have also become best mates and should be left alone.

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