Premier: Sarawak to study Australian crocodile management to address growing population

KUCHING (Aug 5): Sarawak will be sending a delegation to Australia to learn more about the country’s crocodile conservation and management, said Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg.

The Premier said the delegation will be led by Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan, who is also Second Natural Resources and Urban Development Minister.

“Apparently the Sarawak River is now full of crocodiles, so I have decided to send a team led by my deputy premier to study on crocodiles in Australia.

“We want to study the ecosystem and how the Australians manage their crocodile population,” he said when officiating the 10th World Congress of Herpetology (WCH10) at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) here.

Abang Johari later told reporters that the delegation, which also includes Deputy Natural Resources and Urban Development Minister Datuk Len Talif Salleh, will be leaving for Australia on a four-day working visit.

“Crocodiles under the United Nations (UN) are considered as diminishing species, so we are hoping to learn from Australia on their crocodile management practices including how they cull them so that it doesn’t go against the UN,” he said.

He said the delegation will studying on Australia’s crocodile management in the Northern Territory and South Australia.

“The crocodiles in these areas are different so they have to study, and we want to see how crocodiles can coexist with humans in the same space,” he said.

Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) last year said the state’s crocodile population was estimated to be around 24,700 based on a survey carried out between 2021 and 2023.

This was a marked increase compared to a survey conducted between 2012 and 2014 where SFC recorded the population to be around 13,500.