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The killing of tourist Cindy Waldron by a saltwater crocodile while swimming north of Cairns on Sunday has reignited the debate about how to keep people safe from crocs. Federal MP Bob Katter has called for a bigger crocodile cull, although the Queensland government has once again ruled this out. There are very good reasons for this decision.

The evidence suggests that calls for complete deregulation of croc hunting are based on flawed arguments. The easiest way to keep people safe is to make sure they understand the risks.

What have we been doing about crocodiles?

Crocodile populations have been managed in northern Australia since the early 1970s. Before that, it was open season: three decades of hunting wiped out 95% of wild crocodiles, although getting them all proved impossible.

Many hunters grew to respect these unequivocally Australian “beasts”, supporting their subsequent protection. Yet their numbers bounced back much faster than anyone expected. Questions were soon being asked about the wisdom of allowing their recovery.

Sub-adult saltwater crocodile basking on a tidal mud bank, a popular sight for the many tourists who visit northern Australia each year. Adam Britton

Recognising the value of crocodiles to people and ecosystem health, the Northern Territory government changed tack. Crocs became tourism icons, their eggs and skins were harvested sustainably to create local jobs and a fledgling industry, and safety issues were managed by the targeted removal of “problem” crocodiles, alongside visible media campaigns about staying safe. Despite differences between states and territory, the same basic approach is still used.

Has it been effective in saving lives? The first subsequent recorded fatal attack in Queensland happened in 1975, when Peter Reimers was killed while wading in a creek near Mission River. This was only a year after the crocodile population had been protected because it was on the verge of disappearing. Three decades of unregulated hunting hadn’t saved Reimers' life.

The latest statistics as compiled by CrocBITE show 112 attacks between 1971 and May 2016, 33 (30%) of them fatal. That’s an average of 2.5 non-fatal attacks per year and 0.7 fatal attacks per year across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The rate has increased slightly over the past decade, but crocodile attacks remain extremely rare in Australia.

Number of reported saltwater crocodile attacks per country (April 2007 to April 2014). Fatal proportion in red, percentage shows fatality rate. Adam Britton / CrocBITE

The average size of crocodiles is increasing as the population continues to mature towards full recovery. However, given the very low number of attacks, it’s difficult to assess if this has had any impact on the fatality rate.

Attacks usually happen because people get in the water with crocodiles. Such an obvious cause should be easy to prevent, and indeed this is the case.

Attack risk in Australia is low, largely because of the success of long-running campaigns to warn people of the dangers of swimming in crocodile-populated waters.

What lurks beneath? If you’re in crocodile habitat and you find water, always assume that it harbours a crocodile. Adam Britton

Those who live locally are generally most keenly aware of the dangers. Sadly, a disproportionate number of attack victims are visitors who aren’t as aware of the risks. The real problem can therefore be interpreted as a failure to communicate risk, and therein lies the solution.

How to not get eaten by a crocodile

Crocodile attacks are traumatic, unfortunate and potentially tragic incidents that generally can be avoided. Australia has an excellent track record in saving people from crocodile attack. Despite having more saltwater crocodiles than any other country, we have low fatality rates because our management and education program is world-class.

Other countries with crocodiles come to Australia for advice on how to manage their crocodile populations and prevent conflict with people.

But there’s still a grey area for many people. How do you know whether it’s safe to swim in northern Australia? What’s the risk of doing so?

We make decisions every day to assess risk, whether we’re driving, walking down the street, swimming in a pool, or taking a boat out on the water. We’ve been trained to minimise the risks we face.

The same is true of going into the bush and facing potential dangers from snakes, mosquitoes or other animals. Sometimes accidents will happen, often because someone decided to push their luck.

Distribution of saltwater crocodiles throughout their range, including northern Australia. Green are viable populations, orange are recently extirpated populations and blue represents their potential for movement within and between countries. Brandon Sideleau / CrocBITE

But with crocodiles the rules are simple: don’t enter the water in crocodile habitat. In these areas, stay away from the water’s edge, don’t disturb water consistently in the same place, don’t approach or tease crocodiles, camp at least 50 metres from the bank, and don’t go out in small, unstable boats.

Warning signs about crocodiles are there for a reason, to allow you to make an informed decision about your personal safety. Ignore them and you may get away with it, but eventually you will not.

The name ‘saltwater crocodile’ is misleading. They are equally at home in freshwater habitats. Adam Britton

There’s little doubt that Australia knows how to manage wild crocodile populations. The risk of being attacked by a crocodile here is vanishingly small because crocs and people are managed effectively.

We already have a limited cull of crocodiles; the targeting and removal of specific animals that, through their actions, pose an elevated risk to the public. A wider cull won’t gain anything, at the cost of local livelihoods and our natural resources.

This article was co-authored by Erin Britton, a biologist at Big Gecko Crocodilian Research in Darwin.

Adam Britton received funding from Charles Darwin University to develop the technology for the CrocBITE database.

Report from US Geological Survey says northern wildfires must now be seen as significant driver of climate change, not just a side-effect

The devastating rise in Alaska’s wildfires is making global warming even worse than scientists expected, US government researchers said on Wednesday.

The sharp spike in Alaska’s wildfires, where more than 5 million acres burned last year, are destroying a main buffer against climate change: the carbon-rich boreal forests, tundra and permafrost that have served as an enormous carbon sink.

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The scientific mystery behind one of British science's most famous insects has finally been solved.

The spectacular, flat landscape that dominates the left side of Pluto's icy "heart" can now be explained, say scientists.

Scientists unravel details of the famous mutation that turned moths black during the industrial revolution.

WING COLOURS: The same gene that turned peppered moths black to camouflage them in industrial pollution is also behind colour variation in bright tropical butterflies, research shows.

The world's longest and deepest rail tunnel is officially opened in Switzerland, after almost two decades of construction work.

Last year saw record worldwide investment and implementation of clean energy such as wind, solar and hydropower

An upsurge in new wind, solar and hydro plants and capacity saw renewable energy smash global records last year, according to a report on new supply.

Some 147 Gigawatts of renewable electricity came online in 2015 - the largest annual increase ever and as much as Africa’s entire power generating capacity.

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Pressure mounts on ministers to release full evidence behind the decision to end mandatory use of a harmful chemical sheep dip

MPs are demanding that ministers release key documents and correspondence connected to the decision to end the mandatory use of a chemical sheep dip by farmers.

The call comes as the government made a partial release of evidence to explain why it ended use of the chemical. The documents, published for the first time, show ministers were advised to end use of the chemical because of its failure to eradicate the disease (sheep scab) caused by the parasite.

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Mexico, Canada and US collaborate on report that concludes the three nations will have to dramatically ramp up efforts to reach 10% protection goal

North America is far from reaching national and international targets for protecting oceans, according to a first-of-its-kind report released on Wednesday.

The Dare to Be Deep report, created by a coalition of NGOs in the US, Canada and Mexico, finds that less than 1% of these countries’ oceans are protected like national parks – with only four years left to reach the 10% protection goal set in the multilateral Biodiversity Convention.

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Roman tablets discovered during excavations in London include the oldest hand-written document ever found in Britain, archaeologists say.

Brexit would allow Britain to renegotiate a more favourable share of catches, claims out campaigner George Eustice

Britain would have an opportunity to upend fishing quotas that give a “disproportionately large” share of catches to France if it votes to leaves the EU, according to George Eustice, the pro-Brexit minister for farms, food and fisheries.

In an interview with the Guardian, Eustice said that even if it left the EU, the UK would still respect catch limits set out to preserve stocks, some driven to near-extinction by decades of over-fishing.

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We asked you to share your most striking images of the weather in May from around the world. Here are some of our favourites

• You can add your June weather photographs here

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Funding for geoengineering computational experiments was mysteriously included in a Senate appropriations bill

On his late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel recently invited climate scientists to explain that they’re not just messing with us about global warming.

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Elephant populations in Tanzania’s Selous national park could collapse unless poaching and mining are urgently controlled, say WWF

Elephants could disappear from one of Africa’s most important wildlife reserves within six years unless industrial scale poaching is stopped and mining is brought under control, the WWF has said.

Selous national park, a world heritage site in southern Tanzania, has lost an average of almost 2,500 elephants a year since the 1970s. But it has now reached a crtitical stage with only about 15,000 left, according to the latest census.

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Aurora Borealis watchers switch from using detection equipment in England to kit in Scotland after missing spectacular displays in March.

Steep rise between 2010 and 2014 shows link between EU’s renewable energy mandate and deforestation in south-east Asia, say campaigners

Leaked trade industry figures show a five-fold increase in the use of palm oil for biodiesel in Europe between 2010 and 2014, providing new evidence of links between deforestation in southeast Asia and the EU’s renewable energy mandate.

The leaked figures, which the Guardian has seen, show that 45% of palm oil used in Europe in 2014 went to biodiesel, up from 8% in 2010.

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Chinese officials say the population numbers for wild giant pandas are out of the danger zone, but international conservation experts aren't so sure.

Summer stayed into autumn in many parts of Australia. Bondi image from www.shutterstock.com

It’s the same old story: with 2016 on track to become the hottest year on record globally, and record-breaking heat already evident around the world, Australia has just experienced its hottest autumn on record.

Figures from the Bureau of Meteorology indicate Australia has experienced its hottest autumn on record. Bureau of Meteorology

The Bureau of Meteorology has reported that for average temperatures across Australia, this has been the hottest March-May period ever recorded – beating the previous record, set in 2005, by more than 0.2℃.

Within this period, March was also the hottest on record, while April and May were each the second-warmest in a series extending back to 1910.

Temperatures were well above average across much of the country, especially in the east. Bureau of Meteorology Why so hot?

El Niño events tend to cause warmer weather across the east and north of Australia and the major El Niño of 2015-16 undoubtedly contributed to the extreme temperatures experienced across these areas.

However, climate change also played a significant role in our warmest autumn. Previous work, led by ANU climatologist Sophie Lewis, indicates that the human influence on the climate has made a record-breakingly hot autumn roughly 20 times more likely.

In other words, without climate change we would be much less likely to experience autumns as warm as this one has been in Australia.

How we’ll remember autumn 2016

In the past few months, Australia has seen many extreme hot weather events. Melbourne experienced its warmest March night on record, while Sydney had a run of 39 days with daytime highs above 26℃, as the summer heat continued long into March.

But it’s the coral bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef that will likely linger in our memories the longest. Some 93% of the reef was found to be affected by bleaching and recent surveys have revealed that more than one-third of coral in the northern and central parts of the reef have died.

Without climate change, a bleaching event like this would be virtually impossible.

The extreme heat over Australia this autumn and the associated damage to the reef are also having an effect on the election campaign. As public concern over the future of the reef grows, the parties are being asked to defend their climate change policies.

Both major parties have made election commitments to the reef, with the Coalition announcing an extra A$6 million to tackle crown-of-thorns starfish (adding to a further A$171 million committed under the 2016 budget), and Labor an extra A$377 million over five years (A$500 million in total). While both Labor and the Coalition aim to improve water quality in the reef through their policies, the coral bleaching and death this year is linked with warm seas.

Whether we’ll be able to save parts of the reef largely depends on whether we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and manage to prevent the rising trend in temperatures from continuing.

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party MP Robert Borsak admits to shooting and eating an elephant while on a hunting trip in Zimbabwe. In a late-night sitting of New South Wales parliament on Tuesday, he defends his choice ‘to hunt and gather my own meat because it is my right to do so – it’s a clean, organic and sustainable way to live’

• Australian state MP admits eating elephant he shot in Zimbabwe
  
• Australia Greens leader views coral bleaching while snorkelling – video

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