Large crocodiles + me = astronomy

In April last year I visited the Keck Observatory on the big island of Hawaii. After my first visit to the 4-km summit of Mauna Kea, I was feeling a little dizzy and got thinking about how I came to be involved in astronomy in the first placeб… I ended up giving my musings as a talk to the Keck community one wintry afternoon.

Having spent fifteen years of my childhood in the Kimberlies, living in close proximity to king brown snakes and crocodiles seemed natural. Going out on weekends and catching a fish which changed sex from male to female (the Barramundi), was simply fascinating. I had no doubt I would one day be a Marine Biologist.

After seeing the 1986 Giotto encounter with comet Halley, I asked my mother to buy a small 4-inch reflector telescope. Even though I was constantly bitten by mossies each time I took that telescope outside, I found the dark night sky full of surprises. My career path became less certain.

When I entered University, I started a double major in Physics and Zoology. At the end of my second year, a crocodile farm was being built back home in Wyndham. Looking for some summer pocket money and keen to get some experience, I was successful in applying for a job.

Figure 1: Not tempted by the chef's soufflц©, Fred chose to have something with a bit more bite.

Photo: Stacy Mader

On my first day, the manager was showing me around and introduced me to a guy called Erik (alias "The Viking"). Erik started telling us that a count of hatchlings in one pen was about fifteen short. After a bit of looking around, we found they had gone down a storm water drain. Being the smallest, I was "chosen" to go in and flush them out. Concerned the light at the end of the tunnel might be their mother's eyes, I asked what I might protect myself with. Erik went into the storeroom and presented me with overalls and a broom. After crawling about ten metres in a dark drain, sweeping as I went, I managed to flush out a few "snappydiles" (as Erik called them). Their mother was (thankfully) nowhere to be seen.

A few weeks later, a landscaper from Kununurra came over to plant some shrubs near the waterline in the juvenile pond. About thirty crocs lived in this pond, some about two metres long. Again, I was asked to go in with the landscaper and watch over him as he put the shrubs into place. Although I survived the hatchling encounter, the thought of thirty hungry crocs constantly looking at us as a meal was not appealing. Thinking this was no job for a broom, I was keen to see what my next fear-invoking weapon might be... Again I was surprised to find another guy, Mike (aka "Lizard"), coming towards me with a long stick! So there I was on the edge of the pond, daring these crocs to come at me whilst I had a piece of wood in my hands. Later on I discovered the guys at work had come in early and fed the crocs before I arrived - thereby making the crocs less likely to charge. If they did approach me, I'm sure I would have set a new world pole-vaulting record as I sailed over the high fence surrounding the pond.

By this stage I realized why I was having second thoughts about a career in Marine Biology. In the proceeding weeks I discovered that hatchling crocodiles can easily bite through rubber wellington boots; you should never hold a hatchling by the tail, and just because crocodiles make a barking sound, it does not make them man's best friend. However, one of the highlights was feeding the crocodiles; I've included a picture of my favourite croc, "Fred", having a light snack.

In my last week at the farm, I was highly suspicious of what the guys at work might pull. I went through the first four days without incident, but on my last day they got me a beauty. I was handed a camera and told to take a picture of the entire staff (something for me to remember them by). Erik kept telling me to move back so I could get everyone in the picture. As a result, I bumped into a fence surrounding one of the breeding pens. Nothing unusual there I thought, so I refocused on taking the picture, leaning against the fence. What they didn't tell me was the female in that pen had laid a nest right next to where I was leaning. You can imagine my surprise when I felt the fence move as the female came up and hit the fence a few metres from where I was standing! Once I stopped having kittens, I realized all were in the joke and they didn't stop laughing for quite some time. After ten beers or so, I felt calm enough to have a laugh as well.

When I returned to University, I concentrated on Physics/Astronomy, trading the Zoology in for Physical Geography and Mathematics. No snappydiles were to be seen.

Whenever I'm back home fishing, any snappydile who feels the need to take a Barramundi off my fishing line will feel the force of my broomstick!

Stacy Mader
(Stacy.Mader@csiro.au)