Dan Hammersley is all too familiar with the thrill of flicking a lure and landing a big fish.
He also spends a lot of time making sure his fellow fishers take heed of a huge danger they face while doing so.
"People can get very complacent, especially when you're fishing, and you start catching a few," says Mr Hammersley, a recreational fisherman and member of a CrocWise roundtable group.
"You can get very excited and you start to forget about the environment around you."
In the tropics of Far North Queensland, anglers are not just braving the heat when they head out to catch barramundi. They've got potentially deadly estuarine crocodiles to watch out for too.
By the time wildlife officers and police this week confirmed a crocodile was responsible for the death of Cape York fisherman Kevin Darmody, the political debate about croc numbers had already reignited.
"We don't advocate going overboard but thinning them out will absolutely make a difference," Queensland MP Robbie Katter said on Monday.
"Of course, that's not to say we would be able to prevent every encounter but we could significantly reduce the risks."
One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson echoed the sentiment on Friday, citing support for the view from text and telephone polling in two state electorates in Queensland's crocodile country.
Mr Hammersley believes there is a need for CrocWise messaging to reach more people across north Queensland but doubts reducing crocodile numbers will make waterways safer.
Croc numbers rising
That crocodile numbers are on the rise in Queensland is not up for debate.
The state's Department of Environment and Science estimates the population is recovering at a rate of about 2 per cent per year from a historic low in the mid-1970s, when they were declared a protected species after being hunted close to extinction.
A three-year monitoring program that finished in 2019 estimated there were between 20,000 and 30,000 individual animals in Queensland.
Of those, 80 per cent were on Cape York Peninsula and in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Careful where you swim
University of Queensland Emeritus Professor Gordon Grigg, a zoologist who began studying crocodiles more than half a century ago, believes the state's crocodile population will continue to recover for some time yet, albeit slowly.
"The rate varies a bit between river systems, with some having now essentially stable croc numbers and some still with growing numbers," he says.
Professor Grigg recalls growing up on the Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns, back when "we all swam where we wanted to".
Warren Martin, a Gunggandji traditional owner from the state's far north, believes those times should never return.
"Crocodiles stopped being culled back in the '70s for very good reasons," he says.
Mr Martin wants traditional owners to have more influence on crocodile management and a role in educating people about crocodile safety.
He has thrown his support behind efforts to lobby for the introduction of penalties for those who behave recklessly in crocodile habitat.
"I don't see Indigenous people asking for culls because crocodiles are very sacred to our people and I just wonder whose agenda is being pushed and for what reasons," Mr Martin says.
"I'd be looking more at the reasons why humans are being taken by crocodiles, rather than taking the crocodile."
"We were taught as kids that we don't go near [where crocodiles live], we don't go swimming there, we be very careful when we go fishing there, we go in groups so we all keep an eye out for each other, so this stuff doesn't happen."
Humans not top of the menu
Mr Darmody's death, the first fatality in more than two years, occurred in the Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park, one of six declared saltwater crocodile conservation areas in Queensland.
Queensland's saltwater crocodile population densities are highest in northern Cape York, where the latest monitoring program found about three crocodiles for each kilometre of waterway.
Brandon Sideleau, a researcher who runs a global database of crocodilian attacks, says the frequency of attacks is more dependent on human behaviour, natural prey abundance and habitat destruction, than crocodile population density itself.
No 'need for any culling'
Professor Grigg says there is "no obligate need for any culling" of Queensland's crocodile population, particularly as attacks are so infrequent.
"They don't particularly like [to attack] humans because they'd prefer things that aren't so large and so tall," he says.
But because they are "very quick learners", he says removing crocodiles responsible for attacks can be justified.
"It's easy to accept that if a croc kills someone and has a good feed and nothing happens, it'll remember that and if another opportunity arises, it's very likely it could take someone again," Professor Grigg says.
The department this year has removed 20 problem crocodiles from the wild, roughly in line with average figures over the past seven years.
Professor Grigg accepts crocodiles pose "a difficult political issue because of the range of opinions in the community".
"There is no prospect of keeping everyone happy, only finding the happy point where the highest number of people are happy, and that's probably a moving target anyway," he says.
"The fact that there's a debate keeps it in the front of people's minds that crocodiles are dangerous."
