Why don'tcha C'mon on Down Under for a visit... ;-)

[Peter Aawen]

A gator would be more likely to try to eat you if you fed it. If you feed them, they lose their natural fear of humans and begin to associate people with food.

Gators that lose their fear of humans can become very dangerous and the people who associate gators with food have to remove them.

Same with the big Salties we see in places around Northern Oz - there are a number of Tour Operations that, despite frequent warnings NOT to do this, actively 'train' the big crocs to propel themselves up outta the water and grab food from tourists (they usually feed them chicken carcasses) - it's really speccy and makes for great photo ops, but it's SOOOO BLEEDIN' STOOPID TOO!

So in those areas, it's STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that you don't go paddling in a low/close to the waterline kayak or dingy.... After all, the crocs NOW KNOW how to launch themselves outta the water a whole lot higher than that!!

And since they stopped wide ranging culling of all the big crocs back in the early '70's, there's now a whole new generation of crocs out there that haven't ever really been hunted or threatened by people; many of which have been taught to jump outta the water to get food from people; and many of them are now reaching sizes getting close to 20 foot long.... some are even bigger! And there are already places in Far North Queensland, the Northern Territory, and North-West Western Australia where divers never really need to worry about sharks, cos the crocs have eaten them all!

The brief for approaching standing water up that way is to stop well back from the water's edge (10+ feet AT LEAST!) and watch the water & surrounds carefully for at least 30 minutes.... If you see a croc in that time, you know they're there and they'll start hunting you if you go any closer to the water's edge.... And if you DON'T see any crocs in that time, you KNOW they're there and they're ALREADY hunting you!


But seriously, come on down, Oz is a great place to visit, with lotsa phenomenal scenery & fantastic touring/riding roads. And only a few tourists get killed or eaten every year by the flora or fauna, so the more visitors there are, the better the odds that it won't be you! Give us a yell when/if you're planning a visit, and we'll see how many of the local Spyder Ryders we can get to meet up with you.