Dead or Alive? Factors Affecting the Survival of Victims during Attacks by Saltwater Crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) in Australia

Q: What dataset and modeling approach were used to assess survival during attacks?

The study fitted generalized linear models to 87 saltwater crocodile attacks (27 fatal and 60 non-fatal) collected over 42 years in Australia.

Q: Which factors most affect whether a victim survives?

The most influential factors were the body-mass difference between the crocodile and the victim and the victim’s position relative to the water at the time of the attack.

Q: How does victim position relative to water change survival risk?

In-water positions (diving, swimming, wading) carried higher survival risk than on-water (boating) or on-land (fishing and hunting near the water’s edge), with in-water risk increasing as crocodile size rises.

Aug 28, 2026

Uploaded by Theodora

Human–crocodile conflicts are a major conservation problem, and crocodile attacks are increasing globally. This study determines which factors most strongly influence whether a victim survives or dies during saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) attacks in Australia by fitting generalized linear models to 87 attacks from a 42-year dataset. Key drivers are body-mass difference and the victim’s position relative to water; in-water positioning greatly increases risk.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Human–crocodile conflict as a conservation challenge

Knowledge gaps and differences among crocodilian species

OPEN ACCESS Citation: Fukuda Y, Manolis C, Saalfeld K, Zuur A (2015) Dead or Alive? Factors Affecting the Survival of Victims during Attacks by Saltwater Crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) in Australia. PLoS ONE 10(5): e0126778. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0126778 Academic Editor: Christopher Somers, University of Regina, CANADA Received: November 11, 2014 Accepted: April 7, 2015 Published: May 11, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Fukuda et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All data used in this study are fully available in a public repository ([http://](http://)[ ](http://)[www.crocodile-attack.info/](www.crocodile-attack.info/)) . Funding: Wildlife Management International Pty. Limited and Highland Statistics Limited provided support in the form of salaries for authors CM and AZ, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. RESEARCH ARTICLE Dead or Alive? Factors Affecting the Survival of Victims during Attacks by Saltwater Crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) in Australia Yusuke Fukuda1 *, Charlie Manolis2☯, Keith Saalfeld1☯, Alain Zuur3☯ 1 Northern Territory Department of Land Resource Management, Palmerston, Northern Territory, Australia, 2 Wildlife Management International Pty. Limited, Karama, Northern Territory, Australia, 3 Highland Statistics Limited, Newburgh, United Kingdom ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. * [yusuke.fukuda@nt.gov.au](yusuke.fukuda@nt.gov.au) Abstract Conflicts between humans and crocodilians are a widespread conservation challenge and the number of crocodile attacks is increasing worldwide. We identified the factors that most effectively decide whether a victim is injured or killed in a crocodile attack by fitting generalized linear models to a 42-year dataset of 87 attacks (27 fatal and 60 non-fatal) by saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) in Australia. The models showed that the most influential factors were the difference in body mass between crocodile and victim, and the position of victim in relation to the water at the time of an attack. In-water position (for diving, swimming, and wading) had a higher risk than on-water (boating) or on-land (fishing, and hunting near the water's edge) positions. In the in-water position a 75 kg person would have a relatively high probability of survival (0.81) if attacked by a 300 cm crocodile, but the probability becomes much lower (0.17) with a 400 cm crocodile. If attacked by a crocodile larger than 450 cm, the survival probability would be extremely low (<0.05) regardless of the victim’s size. These results indicate that the main cause of death during a crocodile attack is drowning and larger crocodiles can drag a victim more easily into deeper water. A higher risk associated with a larger crocodile in relation to victim’s size is highlighted by children’s vulnerability to fatal attacks. Since the first recently recorded fatal attack involving a child in 2006, six out of nine fatal attacks (66.7%) involved children, and the average body size of crocodiles responsible for these fatal attacks was considerably smaller (384 cm, 223 kg) than that of crocodiles that killed adults (450 cm, 324 kg) during the same period (2006– 2014) . These results suggest that culling programs targeting larger crocodiles may not bean effective management option to improve safety for children. Introduction Conflicts between humans and wildlife, especially large carnivores such as crocodilians, are becoming a complex conservation challenge worldwide [ 1–3]. In the case of crocodilians, they Competing Interests: CM is an

FAQs

What dataset and modeling approach were used to assess survival during attacks?

The study fitted generalized linear models to 87 saltwater crocodile attacks (27 fatal and 60 non-fatal) collected over 42 years in Australia.

Which factors most affect whether a victim survives?

The most influential factors were the body-mass difference between the crocodile and the victim and the victim’s position relative to the water at the time of the attack.

How does victim position relative to water change survival risk?

In-water positions (diving, swimming, wading) carried higher survival risk than on-water (boating) or on-land (fishing and hunting near the water’s edge), with in-water risk increasing as crocodile size rises.

Aug 28, 2026

Uploaded by Theodora