WEBVTT - Part 2: Crocodiles and criminals

0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:03.960
<v Speaker 1>This is part two of a two part series. If

0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.240
<v Speaker 1>you haven't yet, you can start by listening to part one,

0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:09.000
<v Speaker 1>The True Cost of Crocodile Skin. It's in your feed

0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.159
<v Speaker 1>now and just a warning, this episode deals with some

0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:16.520
<v Speaker 1>disturbing themes beat reality, animal cruelty, and child abuse. Please

0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.919
<v Speaker 1>take care while listening, So Kat. At one point, the

0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:25.200
<v Speaker 1>croc skin industry was considered so successful in the Northern

0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.680
<v Speaker 1>Territory that there was talk of emulating it or attempting

0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.639
<v Speaker 1>to in another state in Queensland, tell me a bit

0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.320
<v Speaker 1>about what happened. That's right.

0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.000
<v Speaker 2>The territory had grown one hundred million dollar croc industry

0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.240
<v Speaker 2>and Queensland wanted a piece of it. So Queensland introduced

0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.000
<v Speaker 2>a new law that allowed wild crock eggs to be

0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.960
<v Speaker 2>foraged by licensees, and these licensees would sell them for

0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:52.279
<v Speaker 2>again around twenty five dollars apiece to factory farms. And

0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.600
<v Speaker 2>the new law was supported by the all powerful CATA

0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:01.320
<v Speaker 2>party who also wanted and I'm quoting here indigenous groups

0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.800
<v Speaker 2>to host crocodile hunting safaris. As you can imagine, there

0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.080
<v Speaker 2>was a lot of opposition to the idea, even in

0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:15.240
<v Speaker 2>celebrity circles and in twenty nineteen at Australia Zoo on

0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:20.880
<v Speaker 2>the Sunshine Coast, Bindy Irwin urged her Instagram followers, five.

0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.080
<v Speaker 3>Point seven million of them, to.

0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.360
<v Speaker 2>Sign a petition to scrap this new law, and she

0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.840
<v Speaker 2>warned that crocodile hatchlings would be used to turn into

0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.319
<v Speaker 2>boots and bags and belts, and that Australia Zoo's research

0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.640
<v Speaker 2>with the UNI of Queensland showed that it would be

0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:43.479
<v Speaker 2>devastating to crop populations to take their babies. Her petition

0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.480
<v Speaker 2>provoked these two scientists at Charles Darwin University to give

0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:53.360
<v Speaker 2>her campaign an absolute drubbing. So these two scientists research

0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:59.920
<v Speaker 2>reportedly underpinned Queensland and Territory laws, and their research showed

0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.520
<v Speaker 2>but when wild salty eggs get too wet or too dry,

0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:09.320
<v Speaker 2>most eggs die anyway, and even viable hatchlings had a

0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.920
<v Speaker 2>slim chance of survival to maturity. And so therefore ranching,

0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:19.360
<v Speaker 2>which is collecting the eggs, had minimal impact on crop populations,

0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:24.360
<v Speaker 2>they argued. In fact, they said it had conservation benefits.

0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.360
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so there was a pair of scientists arguing that

0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.520
<v Speaker 1>collecting the crocodile eggs was actually good for the environment.

0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:33.880
<v Speaker 1>Who are these two scientists.

0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, one of the duo was Graham Webb, who is

0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.239
<v Speaker 2>quite a celebrity scientist.

0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.600
<v Speaker 3>He's a blowkey, silver head raconteur.

0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.920
<v Speaker 4>There's maybe one hundred thousand crocodiles now, it's about one

0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:52.000
<v Speaker 4>hundred million dollars a year in turn with everybody. It

0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:56.440
<v Speaker 4>extends out in aboriginal communities and it helps the tourist

0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.160
<v Speaker 4>in this year here, so we've made them.

0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.400
<v Speaker 2>He owns Crocodile Dillis Park, which is a Darwin factory

0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.960
<v Speaker 2>farm and it has an adjoining zoo and research lab

0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:12.400
<v Speaker 2>and Bindi. Owen's other detractor was a man named Adam Britton,

0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:17.839
<v Speaker 2>quite a celebrity scientist, who is this eloquent zoologist who

0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.519
<v Speaker 2>was then in his forties and he was mentored by web.

0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.880
<v Speaker 5>When you work with crocodiles, you have to be very

0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.000
<v Speaker 5>respectful of what they're capable of. And if it goes wrong,

0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:30.640
<v Speaker 5>that's why and you lose your hand, that's when you

0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.600
<v Speaker 5>lose your arm. That's where potentially you could lose your life.

0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:38.920
<v Speaker 2>He had hobnobbed with Royalty. He'd featured in National Geographic

0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:46.400
<v Speaker 2>and David Attenborough documentaries. Today crocodile specialist, doctor Adam Britton

0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:47.880
<v Speaker 2>is writing along with Robbie.

0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.440
<v Speaker 5>He's collecting DNA to help create a genetic map of

0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:57.000
<v Speaker 5>Darwin's crocodiles. What we're doing is we're taking tissue samples

0:03:57.320 --> 0:03:59.960
<v Speaker 5>from crocodiles that were catching in Darwin Harbor.

0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:06.040
<v Speaker 2>And like Graham Web, Adam Britton ran a media business

0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.440
<v Speaker 2>and he provided peace to camera expertise and crop.

0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.720
<v Speaker 3>For hire talent. And he accused.

0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:19.840
<v Speaker 2>Bindy Irwin of trying to make up facts. But as

0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:25.400
<v Speaker 2>her petition gained momentum, so did a transnational police probe

0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.080
<v Speaker 2>into Adam Britton's own fictions.

0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:29.919
<v Speaker 3>And his research.

0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.920
<v Speaker 2>Colleague told me that none of Darwin's research community could

0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:38.600
<v Speaker 2>have possibly imagined in their worst nightmares what he was

0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:39.760
<v Speaker 2>capable of.

0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.440
<v Speaker 1>What did police uncover about Adam Britton.

0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:49.640
<v Speaker 2>Through online sales sites like Gumtree. Britian had been scamming

0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:54.680
<v Speaker 2>residents who were relocating or retiring, and he was offering

0:04:54.720 --> 0:05:00.560
<v Speaker 2>to rehome their dogs, and he'd sent them fictional updates

0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:05.599
<v Speaker 2>on their pets welfare with photos had taken before he

0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:10.080
<v Speaker 2>abused the dogs inside what he called his torture room.

0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.359
<v Speaker 2>And this was a shipping container at the back of

0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:18.800
<v Speaker 2>his home in Darwin's Southeast. He then fed the dog's

0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:24.640
<v Speaker 2>body parts to Smorg, and Smorg was his talent for

0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:30.200
<v Speaker 2>higher crocodile In Autumn twenty twenty two, police raided Britain's

0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:35.440
<v Speaker 2>home and by August twenty twenty four he was serving

0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.919
<v Speaker 2>a ten year jail sentence. He was found guilty of

0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:47.600
<v Speaker 2>fifty six charges, including best reality, animal cruelty and possessing

0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:53.240
<v Speaker 2>child pornography. So before his crimes were exposed, his colleagues

0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.080
<v Speaker 2>had suspected nothing. Most had considered him a nice guy,

0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:02.360
<v Speaker 2>quiet and gentle and nerdy, But then they started asking

0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:08.640
<v Speaker 2>if he duped peers and dog owners, then what else was.

0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.440
<v Speaker 3>Chicanery coming up?

0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.320
<v Speaker 1>CAF visits Britain in prison and interrogates the conservation claims

0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:24.320
<v Speaker 1>at the heart of the crocodile skin industry. So cap

0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:28.560
<v Speaker 1>when Adam Britton's crimes were revealed that he had been

0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:34.159
<v Speaker 1>prolifically abusing animals, people began to look at his research

0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:38.760
<v Speaker 1>and question what a conviction like that meant. Can you

0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.080
<v Speaker 1>tell me about the questions people had and the conclusions

0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.360
<v Speaker 1>that they came to about his crocodile research.

0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.960
<v Speaker 2>The research conducted by Adam Britton and Graham Webb asked

0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:54.919
<v Speaker 2>questions like if we remove s from wild crotness to

0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:59.400
<v Speaker 2>supply factory farms, does that have an ecological impact? Their

0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.960
<v Speaker 2>research can included that extracting wild eggs and farming crocodiles

0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.440
<v Speaker 2>was actually good for conservation, and these findings continue to

0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:14.280
<v Speaker 2>underpin territory and Queensland laws as well as global conservation science,

0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.560
<v Speaker 2>and they also informed federal laws governing farm welfare codes.

0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:23.400
<v Speaker 2>Plus Britains and Webs claims helped frame the territories in

0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:29.080
<v Speaker 2>Queensland's crocodile management plans, and the science Britain helped produce

0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:34.200
<v Speaker 2>underpins not just government policy but also public messaging that

0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:38.000
<v Speaker 2>gives social license to this industry. But soon after his

0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:42.160
<v Speaker 2>arrest for cruelty investiality, some of his colleagues then went

0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.960
<v Speaker 2>searching for the hard data that supports Britains and Webs

0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:51.800
<v Speaker 2>claims and they couldn't find any worse Still, as study

0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.760
<v Speaker 2>by a group of scientists has now found that wild

0:07:55.840 --> 0:08:01.560
<v Speaker 2>extraction for crop farming actually expediates ecosystem decline.

0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.960
<v Speaker 1>Okay, and so what is Adam Britton saying about all

0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.760
<v Speaker 1>of this? Now? You visited him in Dale, didn't you

0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.520
<v Speaker 1>so tell me what he was like and what he said.

0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:17.679
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Britain is now an inmate at Darwin Correctional Center,

0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.280
<v Speaker 2>and I was really scared of meeting him.

0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.680
<v Speaker 3>His crimes were unfathomably cruel.

0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:28.800
<v Speaker 2>You really can't read the court transcript and maintain your composure.

0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.560
<v Speaker 2>And as well as having child abuse material, he's been

0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.480
<v Speaker 2>dubbed the world's worst and a lal abuser, so I

0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:40.400
<v Speaker 2>was pretty nervous. What was extraordinary to me was that

0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.760
<v Speaker 2>when we shook hands, his hand was clammy and his

0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.600
<v Speaker 2>body was trembling, And I soon realized that it was

0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.440
<v Speaker 2>possible that this man was as scared of me as

0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:56.800
<v Speaker 2>I was of him. He acknowledged that animal welfare opinion

0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.640
<v Speaker 2>coming from a zoasatus might seem hypocritical, but he wrote

0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.680
<v Speaker 2>to me that when it comes to animal cruelty on

0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.520
<v Speaker 2>crocodile farms, the small size of cages and conditions in

0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:14.120
<v Speaker 2>farms gave Cross a limited behavioral repertoire. And I'll read

0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:18.520
<v Speaker 2>a little more of that letter. It reads single crocodile

0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.880
<v Speaker 2>pens have come in for particular criticism because of.

0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:23.240
<v Speaker 3>Their small size.

0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.920
<v Speaker 2>While I think it's possible for crocodiles to be kept

0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:31.000
<v Speaker 2>in single pens that don't impact their overall welfare.

0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:32.520
<v Speaker 3>I'd like to.

0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.720
<v Speaker 2>See regulations tightened up to ensure this.

0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.120
<v Speaker 1>He acknowledged that there are welfare concerns in the crocodile industry.

0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think he was tacitly admitting that, which is

0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:50.000
<v Speaker 2>significant because his former research colleague, Graham Webb had said

0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:54.560
<v Speaker 2>animal advocates are misguided and that crops enjoy a better

0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:56.959
<v Speaker 2>life in captivity because it's brutal for.

0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:58.240
<v Speaker 3>Them in the wild.

0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.640
<v Speaker 2>Still stands by the industry, even though he's distanced himself

0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.320
<v Speaker 2>from Britain. And he still claims that Aboriginal workers are

0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:12.600
<v Speaker 2>key beneficiaries of the industry. But when I tried sourcing

0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.959
<v Speaker 2>evidence to support this claim, I.

0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:16.880
<v Speaker 3>Hit a wall.

0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:21.480
<v Speaker 2>There's nothing in government data nor industry auditing that suggests

0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:25.040
<v Speaker 2>that Aboriginal people are key beneficiaries of this industry.

0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.520
<v Speaker 1>Okay, And to come back to Adam Britain, I mean,

0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:33.520
<v Speaker 1>this is a man who it seems was one of

0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.199
<v Speaker 1>the worst animal abuses in the country, if not the world.

0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.360
<v Speaker 1>His research before he was discovered underpins the way that

0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.880
<v Speaker 1>the crocodile industry works. Now, so what does that say

0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:47.920
<v Speaker 1>to you about how we should be thinking about the

0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:48.880
<v Speaker 1>crocodile industry.

0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:53.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well, first, I think lawmakers really mass review whether

0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.400
<v Speaker 2>it's okay to have laws concerning animal welfare informed by.

0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:58.280
<v Speaker 3>A zoa sadist.

0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:03.880
<v Speaker 2>Many animal advocates described this as a cruel and unnecessary

0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.080
<v Speaker 2>industry that exists solely to cater for the rich. It's

0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.640
<v Speaker 2>also been described as secretive, and I know from my

0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.280
<v Speaker 2>interviews that very few people employed by the industry are

0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.120
<v Speaker 2>prepared to speak out. Many of them are bound by

0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:22.640
<v Speaker 2>non disclosure agreements, and some ex workers wouldn't go on

0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:27.480
<v Speaker 2>the record because they feared industry figures, and some of

0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.680
<v Speaker 2>the scientists I spoke we also wouldn't go on the record,

0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.559
<v Speaker 2>as the research community in Darwin is really small and

0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:40.080
<v Speaker 2>the university sector is very political. And so I think

0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.920
<v Speaker 2>it's useful to think about the industry. As Donnie and

0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:48.440
<v Speaker 2>Belong described it as a very outdated and colonial industry.

0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:53.520
<v Speaker 1>And you mentioned that more recent research has thrown into

0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:59.480
<v Speaker 1>question those claims around conservation and crocodile farming. So at

0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.040
<v Speaker 1>this moment, is there anyone who is looking into the industry.

0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.200
<v Speaker 1>Do you say that there might be reform that comes

0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:05.520
<v Speaker 1>from this.

0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:07.600
<v Speaker 3>I think there might be reform.

0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.840
<v Speaker 2>There is a study about to come out, it's been

0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:15.160
<v Speaker 2>peer reviewed. Hopefully the territory government will look into the

0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:19.480
<v Speaker 2>science now and review the science. Bodies like the UCN

0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.120
<v Speaker 2>Graham Web no longer sits on that body. His chief

0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:29.160
<v Speaker 2>scientist still does, but bodies like those are starting to

0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:36.080
<v Speaker 2>question whether it's okay to have its advisory groups kind

0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:41.120
<v Speaker 2>of stacked with industry based scientists rather than what they

0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:46.040
<v Speaker 2>call more blue sky scientists or filled research based scientists.

0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.640
<v Speaker 2>I think things are slowly shifting. I think people in

0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.800
<v Speaker 2>the fashion justice sector would like to see this industry

0:12:54.840 --> 0:13:00.280
<v Speaker 2>band and transition into something more productive that doesn't cater

0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.280
<v Speaker 2>solely towards a rich market.

0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.480
<v Speaker 1>Well, Ca, thank you so much for your time.

0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:22.319
<v Speaker 3>Thank you, Ruby, thanks.

0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.520
<v Speaker 1>For listening to this episode of seven Am.

0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:25.040
<v Speaker 3>Tomorrow.

0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.520
<v Speaker 1>We'll be back with another of our favorite episodes from

0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.640
<v Speaker 1>last year. It's about the ways AI chatbots are being

0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:35.200
<v Speaker 1>designed to keep us engaged, with sometimes devastating consequences. The

0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.200
<v Speaker 1>story centers on the relationship between an older man and

0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.960
<v Speaker 1>a meta chatbot. What it reveals is the way that

0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.560
<v Speaker 1>loneliness is being exploited by big tech for financial gain.

0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:46.080
<v Speaker 1>I'm Ruby Jones.

0:13:46.160 --> 0:14:01.840
<v Speaker 3>This is seven am. Thanks for listening.