After a government department handed him a 20-day deadline to get rid of his cherished creatures, a distraught animal lover shot and killed his two pet crocodiles.
Adrian Hogg, 45, obtained a permit to keep the reptiles, but the Queensland Department of Environment altered the rule in 2020, prohibiting the keeping of crocs as pets.
Both choices were difficult, he added, and his efforts to re-home them were unsuccessful because zoos are already overcrowded with crocodiles.
He stated that he did not want to place them on a farm because he was afraid they would be slaughtered for their skin.
He was also instructed to supply the department with documentation of their deaths.
The father of two claimed he showed up at the company’s Innisfail office with the crocodile carcasses as proof of compliance.
Mr Hogg is now claimed to be under investigation by the department for the manner in which his crocs were killed. However, Mr Hogg said that he was not informed of this and believes the officials are acting out of spite.
‘They’re simply trying to make it look like I’m the bad guy,’ he explained.
‘They don’t like it when their demands for the euthanasia of healthy captive protected native species are exposed in the media.’
‘They are supposed to protect wildlife, not order its extinction,’ says the author.
Mr Hogg claimed he paid $700 for his cherished pets in the Northern Territory and spent $30,000 creating an ‘escape proof’ cage for them at his home, which included a lagoon full of fish.
According to the government, keeping crocodiles as pets is unlawful under current regulations because they are dangerous reptiles that pose a public safety concern when maintained in captivity.
It did not tell Mr Hogg to shoot the crocodiles, but rather to have them euthanized humanely, according to a spokesman.
It stated that the situation was now being investigated.