WEBVTT - Part 2: Crocodiles, crimes and conservation claims 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:03.480 This is part two of a two part series. If 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:05.960 you haven't yet, you can start by listening to part one. 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.840 Inside Australia's secretive crocodile skin Industry. It's in your feed 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.680 now and just a warning, this episode deals with some 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:17.480 disturbing themes bestiality, animal cruelty and child abuse. Please take 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:22.360 care while listening, So Kat. At one point, the croc 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.759 skin industry was considered so successful in the Northern Territory 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.920 that there was talk of emulating it or attempting to 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.960 in another state. In Queensland, tell me a bit about 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:33.519 what happened. 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:34.400 That's right. 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.120 The territory had grown one hundred million dollar croc industry 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:40.440 and Queensland wanted a piece of it. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:42.839 So Queensland introduced. 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.080 A new law that allowed wild crock eggs to be 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:49.040 foraged by licensees, and these licensees would sell them for 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:53.400 again around twenty five dollars apiece to factory farms. And 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:57.200 the new law was supported by the all powerful CATA party, 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:02.920 who also wanted and quoting here, indigenous groups to host 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:07.520 crocodile hunting safaris. As you can imagine, there was a 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.839 lot of opposition to the idea even in celebrity circles, 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:17.600 and in twenty nineteen at Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast, 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:22.760 Bindy Irwin urged her Instagram followers, five point seven million 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:27.360 of them, to sign a petition to scrap this new law. 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.240 And she warned that crocodile hatchlings would be used to 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.440 turn into boots and bags and belts, and that Australia 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.240 Zoo's research with the UNI of Queensland showed that it 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:42.640 would be devastating to crop populations to take their babies. 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:48.680 Her petition provoked these two scientists at Charles Darwin University 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:53.400 to give her campaign an absolute drubbing. So these two 0:01:53.480 --> 0:02:00.360 scientists research reportedly underpinned Queensland and Territory laws, and their 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.560 research showed that when wild salty eggs get too wet 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:09.080 or too dry, most eggs die anyway, and even viable 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:14.000 hatchlings had a slim chance of survival to maturity. And 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.639 so therefore ranching, which is collecting the eggs, had minimal 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.720 impact on crop populations, they argued. In fact, they said 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.440 it had conservation benefits. 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.440 Okay, so there was a pair of scientists arguing that 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.600 collecting the crocodile eggs was actually good for the environment. 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.120 Who are these two scientists? 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:39.040 Yeah, one of the duo was Graham Webb, who is 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:43.679 quite a celebrity scientist. He's a blokey, silver head raconteur. 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.000 There's maybe one hundred thousand crocodiles now, it's about one 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.919 hundred million dollars a year in turn out with everybody. 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:57.120 It extends out in Aboriginal communities and it helps the 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.840 tourist indus year here. So we've made them an acid. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.160 He owns Crocodili's Park, which is a Darwin factory farm 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:09.560 and it has an adjoining zoo and research lab and Bindi. 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:11.440 Owen's other detractor was. 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.639 A man named Adam Britton, quite a celebrity scientist, who 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:20.160 is this eloquent zoologist who was then in his forties 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.600 and he was mentored by web. 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.959 When you work with crocodiles, you have to be very 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.080 respectful of what they're capable of. And if it goes wrong, 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:31.720 that's why and you lose your hand. That's when you 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.680 lose your arm, that's where potentially you could lose your life. 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:40.000 He had hobnobbed with Royalty. He'd featured in National Geographic 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:47.480 and David Attenborough documentaries. Today, crocodile specialist doctor Adam Britton 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.200 is writing along with Rabie. 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.520 He's collecting DNA to help create a genetic map of 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:58.080 Dorwin's crocodiles. What we're doing is we're taking tissue samples 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.480 from crocodiles that were in Darwen Harboring. 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:07.119 And like Graham Web, Adam Britton ran a media business 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.440 and he provided peace to camera expertise and crop for 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:17.360 hire talent, and he accused Bindy Irwin of trying to. 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:18.440 Make up facts. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:25.440 But as her petition gained momentum, so did a transnational 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.520 police probe into Adam Britton's own fictions. And his research 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:35.000 colleague told me that none of Darwin's research community could 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:39.680 have possibly imagined in their worst nightmares what he was 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:40.840 capable of. 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.520 What did police uncover about Adam Britton. 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.400 Through online sales sites like Gumtree. 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:54.200 Britian had been scamming residents who were relocating or retiring, 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:59.320 and he was offering to rehome their dogs, and he'd 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:03.760 sent them some fictional updates on their pets welfare with 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:07.719 photos had taken before he abused. 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:11.400 The dogs inside what he called his torture room. 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.440 And This was a shipping container at the back of 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:19.919 his home in Darwin's Southeast. He then fed the dog's 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:25.719 body parts to Smorg, and Smorg was his talent for 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:31.599 higher crocodile In Autumn twenty twenty two, police raided Britain's home, 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:36.680 and by August twenty twenty four he was serving a 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:41.600 ten year jail sentence. He was found guilty of fifty 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:49.880 six charges, including best reality, animal cruelty and possessing child pornography. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:55.640 So before his crimes were exposed, his colleagues had suspected nothing. 0:05:56.120 --> 0:06:00.599 Most had considered him a nice guy, quiet and gentle nerdy, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:06.160 but then they started asking if he duped peers and 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.720 dog owners, then what else was. 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.520 Chicnery coming up? 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.400 CAF visits Britain in prison and interrogates the conservation claims 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:25.400 at the heart of the crocodile skin industry. So cap 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.640 when Adam Britton's crimes were revealed that he had been 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:35.239 prolifically abusing animals, people began to look at his research 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:39.839 and question what a conviction like that meant. Can you 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.159 tell me about the questions people had and the conclusions 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.440 that they came to about his crocodile research. 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:51.040 The research conducted by Adam Britton and Graham Webb asked 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:56.000 questions like if we remove s from wild crotness to 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:00.480 supply factory farms, does that have an ecological impact? Their 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:05.240 research concluded that extracting wild eggs and farming crocodiles was 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:09.120 actually good for conservation, and these findings continue to underpin 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:15.360 territory and Queensland laws as well as global conservation science, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.640 and they also informed federal laws governing farm welfare codes. 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:21.360 Plus, Britains and. 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:27.160 Webs claims helped frame the territories in Queensland's crocodile management plans, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:32.320 and the science Britain helped produce underpins not just government 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.360 policy but also public messaging that gives social. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:37.440 License to this industry. 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:42.040 But soon after his arrest for cruelty investiality, some of 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.320 his colleagues then went searching for the hard data that 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:49.360 supports Britains and Webs claims, and they couldn't find any 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.920 worse Still, as study by a group of scientists has 0:07:55.000 --> 0:08:01.080 now found that wild extraction for crop farming actually expediates 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:02.640 ecosystem decline. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.040 Okay, and so what is Adam Britton saying about all 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.840 of this? Now? You visited him in Dale, didn't you? 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.600 So tell me what he was like and what he said. 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:18.760 Yeah, Britain is now an inmate at Darwin Correctional Center, 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.320 and I was really scared of meeting him. 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.720 His crimes were unfathomably cruel. 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:29.880 You really can't read the court transcript and maintain your composure. 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.640 And as well as having child abuse material, he's been 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.000 dubbed the world's worst and a lal. 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:37.720 Abuser, so I was pretty nervous. 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.720 What was extraordinary to me was that when we shook hands, 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.240 his hand was clammy and his body was trembling, And 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.400 I soon realized that it was possible that this man 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.120 was as scared of me as I was of him. 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:59.319 He acknowledged that animal welfare opinion coming from a zoasatus 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:03.480 might seem hypocritical, but he wrote to me that when 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.800 it comes to animal cruelty on. 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.199 Crocodile farms, the small size. 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.600 Of cages and conditions in farms gave Cross a limited 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:17.040 behavioral repertoire. And I'll read a little more of that letter. 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:21.719 It reads single crocodile pens have come in for particular 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.359 criticism because of their small size. 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:26.960 While I think it's possible. 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.920 For crocodiles to be kept in single pens that don't 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:35.320 impact their overall welfare. I'd like to see regulations tightened 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:36.800 up to ensure this. 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:42.200 He acknowledged that there are welfare concerns in the crocodile industry. 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.720 Yeah, I think he was tacitly admitting that, which is 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:51.080 significant because his former research colleague, Graham Webb had said 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.640 animal advocates are misguided and that crops enjoy a better 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.040 life in captivity because it's brutal for. 0:09:58.040 --> 0:09:59.319 Them in the wild. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:04.280 Where still stands by the industry, even though he's distanced 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.280 himself from Britain, and he still claims that Aboriginal works 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.040 are key beneficiaries of the industry. But when I tried 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.040 sourcing evidence to support this claim. 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:17.960 I hit a wall. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:22.559 There's nothing in government data nor industry auditing that suggests 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.120 that Aboriginal people are key beneficiaries of this industry. 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.600 Okay. And to come back to Adam Britain, I mean, 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.600 this is a man who it seems was one of 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:39.280 the worst animal abuses in the country, if not the world. 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.440 His research before he was discovered underpins the way that 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.960 the crocodile industry works now, so what does that say 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:49.000 to you about how we should be thinking about the 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:49.960 crocodile industry. 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:54.800 Yeah, well, first, I think lawmakers really mass review whether 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.480 it's okay to have laws concerning animal welfare informed by. 0:10:58.360 --> 0:10:59.439 A zoa sadist. 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:04.960 Many animal advocates described this as a cruel and unnecessary 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:09.160 industry that exists solely to cater for the rich. It's 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.720 also been described as secretive, and I know from my 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.360 interviews that very few people employed by the industry are 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.199 prepared to speak out. Many of them are bound by 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.720 non disclosure agreements, and some ex workers wouldn't go on 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:28.560 the record because they feared industry figures, and some of 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.720 the scientists I spoke we also wouldn't go on the record, 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.640 as the research community in Darwin is really small and 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.600 the university sector is very political. 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.360 And so I think it's useful to think about the industry. 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.400 As Donnie and Belong described it as a very outdated 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.120 and colonial industry. 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.600 And you mentioned that more recent research has thrown into 0:11:55.080 --> 0:12:00.680 question those claims around conservation and crocodile farming. At this 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:02.520 moment in time, is there anyone who is looking into 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.720 the industry. Do you say that there might be reform 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:06.600 that comes from this. 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:08.760 I think there might be reform. 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.920 There is a study about to come out, it's been 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:16.240 peer reviewed. Hopefully the territory government will look into the 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.439 science now and review the science. Bodies like the RUCN. 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:25.199 Graham Web no longer sits on that body. His chief 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:30.240 scientist still does, but bodies like those are starting to 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:37.160 question whether it's okay to have its advisory groups kind 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:42.199 of stacked with industry based scientists rather than what they 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:47.120 call more blue sky scientists or filled research based scientists. 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.320 I think things are slowly shifting. 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.760 I think people in the fashion justice sector would like 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:59.800 to see this industry band and transition into something more 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.360 productive that doesn't cater solely towards a rich market. 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.560 Well, now, thank you so much for your time. 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:16.400 Thank you Ruby. 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.280 Also in the news today, Quantus faces a ninety million 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.520 dollar penalty of its illegal outsourcing of more than one thousand, 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:33.040 eight hundred ground handling jobs during the COVID nineteen pandemic. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.319 Federal Court Justice Michael Lee said fifty million dollars should 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.000 be paid to the Transport Workers' Union, with the rest 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.160 to be determined at a later hearing. Justice Lee said 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.880 Pontus had shown the wrong kind of sorry, as it 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.240 was more worried about the impact on the company than 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:53.840 the impact on illegally sacked workers. And younger Australians face 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.280 lower living standards than their parents, the chair of the 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.480 Productivity Commission has warned. In an address to the Press 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.760 Clubney Wood says the generation born in the nineties were 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:04.840 the first not to earn more than people born a 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.160 decade before them. She says this same generation will bear 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.679 the brunt of population aging and the pressure it will 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.760 put on the care workforce and government budgets, while at 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:15.480 the same time having to deal with the cost of 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.920 inaction on climate change policy. I'm Ruby Jones. This is 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.240 seven am and I'll be back tomorrow with a full 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.880 breakdown of Donald Trump's meetings with Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelenski. 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:26.960 See then.