Tourists often travel to Australia with the hope of getting up close and — not too —personal with wildlife and two lucky visitors had a unique crocodile sighting that certainly didn’t disappoint. The lucky pair and their tour guide Nick Bohm watched on as a saltwater croc and cow interacted with one another, but it wasn’t quite the ferocious encounter you’d expect.
The unwitting cow offered its potential predator a “kiss on the head” instead. “It was unreal,” Nick from Daintree Crocodile Tours told Yahoo News. “I’ve been fortunate enough to do this for 11 years and I still get excited every time I see a croc and something happens.”
The tour guide explained he barely ever takes his phone out to film anything on the job but jumped to capture this moment, urging the tourists to do the same.
Why did the crocodile and cow interaction play out this way?
Nick explained there are plenty of cattle farms in the area and it’s not the first time he’s seen the two species interact but it’s never quite been this tame. He believes there are likely two factors that resulted in the two animals reacting in a different way than expected.
“I’d been observing that crocodile all morning, and basically it had a full belly. And when they’ve got a full belly, they’d be like us, in a bit of a food coma,” Nick said. Being full, the crocodile had no desire to hunt and was likely wanting the cow to move out of the way so he instead could enjoy the shade.
“The crocodile was probably a little bit too small to take down that cow anyway. Maybe in deeper water it might have stood a chance,” Nick said.
The unwitting cow dashed away once it realised what was floating up to it in the water. Source: Instagram/DaintreeCrocodileTours
As for the second reason why the cow calmly engaged with the croc, it likely mistook the predator as something else.
“The croc slowly made its way over to the shade where the cow was and the cow was oblivious, it must have thought it was a log because it bent down to give the crocodile a kiss on the head,” Nick said.
Cows often fall prey to Australia’s ‘magnificent’ predator
There are many examples of the two animals interacting in Australia but often, as expected, the cow succumbs to the impressive skills of its predator.
A fisherman captured the “magnificent” image of a croc swimming through waters in the East Kimberley area while holding a dead cow in its jaws in July.
When cattle farms are near crocodile habitats, it can often cause huge issues for farmers as they lose livestock to the predators. A Northern Territory fisherman Rodney Fischer told Yahoo News previously that cattle stations are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of livestock due to crocs wandering onto property and snatching cows.
“They lose about three cows a day or 1,000 per year, which is worth about $800,000,” Fischer explained.
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