Tuesday 25 November 2014

Crocodile attack database ‘will aid conservation efforts and save lives’

Australian-founded database CrocBITE, with records of 2,700 worldwide crocodile attacks, an attempt to understand ‘human-crocodile conflict’

Oliver Milman

Tuesday 25 November 2014 01.59 GMT
An Australian-founded database that lists worldwide crocodile attacks will be used to help conservation efforts for the species and save people’s lives after securing funding.

The database, called CrocBITE, was started in 2013 by Dr Adam Britton, a researcher at Charles Darwin University, and his student Brandon Sideleau.

CrocBITE has now received $30,000 in funding through an Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration award so that the database can be expanded with the help of Imperial College London.

Britton told Guardian Australia that when CrocBITE launched “on a shoestring budget” last year, it had 1,800 registered incidents logged, including fatal and non-fatal crocodile attacks. There are now around 2,700 crocodile attack records, taken from around the world.

“We realised there was no way to gather information on crocodile attacks in one place, even though these attacks are becoming more of a problem,” Britton said. “Human-crocodile conflict is a serious conservation problem and we need basic information on when and why people are being attacked.”

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