Australian police shoot killer croc as remains are found

Keith Parry, 20, disappeared while trying to swim across the Daly River, 150 kilometres (93 miles) south of Darwin city, in the early hours of Friday morning.

Rangers found his savaged body on Saturday, almost one kilometre downstream from where he disappeared, and police said they had shot the crocodile believed to be responsible. "The evidence found did strongly suggest that he was attacked by a crocodile," a police spokeswoman told AFP. "A 4.3-metre (14 feet) crocodile has been destroyed which is believed to be the one that was involved in the attack."

Police said Parry had been intoxicated before he went swimming, adding that he had been celebrating with family ahead of his 21st birthday on Sunday. "It's apparent that family members have seen the head of a crocodile making its way towards the man who's now missing, plus the other person he was crossing the river with," Duty Superintendent Jamie Chalker said earlier. "As we now know, one made it and one didn't," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Parks and wildlife officers were ordered to shoot any crocodile longer than three metres (10 feet) during a search of the river Friday, and spokesman Dean Lynch said one had been killed overnight. "The Daly is prolific with large crocodiles," he said. "I don't have the information about how many attacks there have been but there has been a few over the years. The Daly is well known for large crocodiles."

The missing man's cousin Richard Parry said the family had been woken by Keith's screams. "We all heard screaming coming from across the river in the middle of the night," he told The Australian newspaper, adding: "He was a young skinny fellow and that's a big crocodile."

It was the region's second fatal crocodile attack in a month, following the death of an 11-year-old girl in the Black Jungle Swamp, near Darwin, in March. Briony Goodsell was taken by a saltwater crocodile while swimming with her seven-year-old sister and two friends.

Her death - which came after Jeremy Doble, five, was killed in Queensland state's Daintree River in February after chasing his dog into the shallows - renewed debate about culling the reptiles.

The government of the Northern Territory, of which Darwin is the capital, is due to release a new draft management plan for crocodiles next week, with some calling for the introduction of a pay-per-kill hunting programme.

Local authorities have pushed for limited trophy hunting of the creatures - a proposal which was rejected in 2005, but has been revisited in the wake of the recent attacks.

An average of two people a year are killed in Australia by saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to seven metres (23 feet) long and weigh more than a tonne.

Crocodiles are officially protected in the Northern Territory and are estimated to number 80,000 that thrive in the vast network of rivers and lakes criss-crossing the region.

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