Disbelief as crocodile captured in Newcastle creek thousands of kilometres from natural habitat

Disbelief as crocodile captured in Newcastle creek thousands of kilometres from natural habitat The juvenile freshwater crocodile was first spotted by a group of teenagers in Ironbark Creek in the Australian city on Saturday An Australian freshwater crocodile has been captured in a city creek thousands of kilometres south of its normal range, after sightings shocked onlookers at a suburban park. The crocodile was first spotted in Ironbark Creek in Newcastle – about 100km north of Sydney – around midday on Saturday, by a group of teenagers. Stephanie Kirsop, the mother of one of the teenagers, said when her son called her to relay the sighting, her initial reaction was: “This is a trick … it looks like a crocodile but that’s probably a log.” “It took him about two hours to fully convince me to go down there and have a look,” she said. “I get there, I look and here’s this little crocodile swimming around in the water.” The sighting occurred at Federal Park in Wallsend, close to a local pool and primary school. Kirsop said she was met with initial disbelief when she contacted the wildlife rescue group Wires, and the Australian Reptile Park. She also contacted New South Wales police who sent an officer to the park at about 4.30pm on Saturday. “Once that police officer saw that crocodile out swimming in the water, that’s when everything started going a bit quicker,” Kirsop said. A team of crocodile handlers, led by Billy Collett of the Australian Reptile Park, captured the freshwater crocodile on Sunday night, after multiple attempts on Saturday night and Sunday morning. “We didn’t have a boat [on Saturday], so the [State Emergency Service] dropped us off a rescue raft,” Collett said. “We paddled that down but it was just too slow to get enough to jump without him spooking.” Collett’s team returned on Sunday with a motored tinnie, finding the croc in the evening near wetlands approximately 3km downstream from where it was first spotted. “I just sent it off the nose of th...