How many people are killed by crocodiles in Australia?
One or two people a year are killed by crocodiles in Australia. Not one every three months, as Bob Katter infamously claimed.
Detailed answer: In November 2017, Australian MP Bob Katter became an internet viral sensation. It happened when he responded to a question about gay marriage. Katter said: “I mean let there be a thousand blossoms bloom, as far as I’m concerned,” before launching into an abrupt segue.
“But I ain’t spending any time on it because in the meantime every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in north Queensland.”
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The bizarreness of the statement turned Katter into a meme, but was he accurate about the north Queensland crocodile carnage? Luckily, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has the answers.
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Australian crocodile death statistics
The Bureau records all underlying causes of death in Australia, with current figures available up to 2018. There is a medical diagnosis ICD-10 code assigned to “bitten or struck by crocodile or alligator”. It’s code W58, if you must know).
From the spreadsheet, we see croc deaths break down year by year since 2009, when three people died. In 2010, 2011 and 2012, just one person killed by a crocodile each year. In 2013, crocodiles in Australia killed two people. And 2014 was a particularly bad year, with five crocodile-related deaths.
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From 2015 to 2018, crocodiles in Australia killed a total of four people. The rough rate of one or two per year holds firm when averaged out over a decade.
So, the saltwater crocodiles of northern Australia are clearly dangerous. But the death rate is nowhere near as high as Bob Katter claimed. Especially given that these deaths are spread over Western Australia and the Northern Territory as well as north Queensland croc hotspots such as the Proserpine River and Daintree River.
The key thing about big crocodiles in Australia is that you know where they’re going to be – waterways and watering holes. Stay away from the water’s edge (unless you want to take on the Cage Of Death experience in Darwin). You stand next to no chance once in the water – crocodiles can swim at speeds of up to 29km/h.
Take a crocodile-watching cruise instead. That way, it’s unlikely that anyone has to call 000 to report you being torn apart by a croc. Australia’s deadly snakes, on the other hand, are much less predictable, killing two to three people per year – so why not worry about them instead? Or, perhaps, the other dangerous creatures of far north Queensland – cassowaries.
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