Crocodile casually strolls into backyard, gets thwarted by wheelie bins
LONDON -- It's not everyday that an enormous crocodile strolls into someone's back garden.
But, when a 3.5-metre crocodile strutted into the backyard of a house in Karumba in Queensland, Australia, on New Year's Eve, locals found themselves building a makeshift trap with a few unusual garden objects.
"The croc enjoyed basking in the backyard for a few hours from around 6am before he made the snappy decision to move out to the front gate where he remained for the rest of the day," reads Queensland Police's account of the dramatic events.
"Officers and locals initially orchestrated a line of wheelie bins in an attempt to funnel him back towards the water but it became clear he wasn’t keen to move," the account continued.
When the wheelie bin "funnel" plan was showing no signs of working, police then decided it was best to keep him in one place and ensure he didn't wander off. They decided that hay bales were the best option for a makeshift trap.
"Officers then made the large scale decision to box him in with hay bales and contain him until wildlife experts from Cairns arrived to relocate him."
Aye, Karumba!
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
