Crocodile Feeding Cruises - Are They a Good Idea?

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As a general rule of thumb feeding wildlife never ends well, animals come to be dependent on hands outs and often fail to forage for their natural, more nutritious food. The topic becomes especially controversial when the animals being fed are large, potentially dangerous predators, with concerns that acclimated animals will become more dangerous to humans.
One example though, of where feeding predators has worked well is the world famous jumping crocodile cruises on the Adelaide River in the Northern Territory, where large salt water crocodiles have been fed on a daily basis for over 30 years.
Over the last three decades the crocodiles on this particular stretch of river have learnt associate the cruise boats with free food, but interestingly the science shows they appear no more interested in other boats then crocodiles in areas of the Adelaide River where no cruises occur. This is because crocodiles are able to pick up on very specific queues, and to the resident crocodiles, the large, twin engine boats they are fed from and very distinct and different from the smaller boats the local people use to fish from.
Besides having a remarkable safety record, the jumping crocodile cruises offer a crucial platform to educate the public about crocodile safety, conservation, and biology, with tens of thousands of tourists getting to witness these crocodiles every single year.
Perhaps even more importantly is that crocodile feeding cruises provide vital employment for locals, that depends on the existence of crocodiles and a healthy river to be sustainable, making the conservation of crocodiles in the area economically important to local people who might otherwise be pushing for the crocodiles removal.
While the general rule of thumb, that “fed wildlife is dead wildlife” rings true in most situations, and it’s never a good idea to encourage wild animals to seek food from human beings ordinarily, the crocodile jumping cruises of the Adelaide River serve as a great example that sometimes feeding wildlife can benifit human and animal alike

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