Missing Australian fisherman's body found in crocodile

The assemblage of an Australian antheral who vanished portion sportfishing with friends has been recovered wrong a crocodile.

Kevin Darmody was past seen astatine Kennedy's Bend - a well-known saltwater crocodile situation successful a distant portion of bluish Queensland - connected Saturday.

After a two-day hunt of the area, constabulary euthanised 2 ample crocodiles and recovered quality remains.

The assemblage is yet beryllium formally identified, but constabulary accidental it is simply a "tragic ending" to the hunt for the 65-year-old.

Mr Darmody was an experienced fisherman and a well-known subordinate of the assemblage successful Cape York.

The 2 crocodiles, which measured 4.1m (13.4 ft) and 2.8m successful length, were changeable dormant connected Monday astir 1.5 km (0.9 miles) from wherever helium was past seen.

Human remains were recovered wrong lone 1 of the reptiles, but wildlife officers judge some were progressive successful the incident.

The fishermen with Mr Darmody astatine the clip did not spot the attack, but reported proceeding him yell, followed by a large splash.

"I raced down… but determination was nary motion of him, conscionable his thongs connected the slope and thing else," his person John Peiti told the Cape York Weekly.

Crocodiles are communal successful Australia's tropical north, but attacks are rare. Mr Darmody's decease is conscionable the 13th fatal onslaught successful Queensland since record-keeping began successful 1985.

Since a prohibition connected hunting successful 1974, Queensland's crocodile colonisation has rebounded from a debased of immoderate 5,000 animals to astir 30,000 today.

A 2019 study suggested an mean of 1.7 big crocs surviving successful each kilometre of stream surveyed.

Under Queensland's absorption programme, "problem crocodiles" are removed from areas wherever they endanger nationalist safety, and euthanised successful uncommon instances.

Those numbers are dwarfed by Australia's Northern Territory (NT), which is location to the world's largest chaotic crocodile colonisation of immoderate 100,000 reptiles.

Despite publicity campaigns to beryllium "crocwise" astir rivers, determination was an mean of 1-2 deaths from crocodile attacks successful the Territory each twelvemonth from 2005, but nary person occurred since 2018.

Additional reporting by Tom Housden