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Four individuals have been charged with the theft of hundreds of crocodile eggs from the renowned Kakadu National Park. Among those facing charges are pilot Sebastian Robinson, alongside Timothy Luck, Dean Larsen, and Stephen Slark. They are accused of illegally taking, possessing, and relocating a protected species from the park in February 2024.
In connection to this incident, a company named SDRL Pty Ltd, operating under the alias Kinga Contracting, is also facing charges. The company is accused of securing financial gain through deceptive practices related to the case.
The charges emerged from a comprehensive investigation conducted collaboratively by Parks Australia, the Australian Federal Police, and the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission.
In the Northern Territory, the legal collection of crocodile eggs is a regulated activity, where eggs are supplied to crocodile farms. This process typically involves helicopter pilots skillfully lowering a person onto nests in remote wetlands to gather the eggs.
Legal crocodile egg collecting in the Northern Territory provides eggs to crocodile farms and involves helicopter pilots lowering a man on a line onto nests to do the collecting in remote wetlands.
In the Darwin Local Court today Ruth Champion, appearing for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, said the charges of illegally taking crocodile eggs involved serious offending.
That took into account the sophistication and complexity of the operation, the number of accused acting in concert, the use of a helicopter and the very large number of eggs taken, she told the court.
“We’re not talking about one, two or three, but something in the hundreds.”
Champion also noted the impact of the alleged egg stealing on Traditional Owners and the cultural harm felt by them.
Defence lawyer Thomas Clelland told the court the matter was a complicated one involving the complex area of DNA analysis.
Judge Elizabeth Morris set a five-day hearing from November 30 to December 4, with 10 witnesses to be called.
In February 2022 Robinson was piloting a helicopter on a legal crocodile egg collecting mission in the Top End when the machine crashed, killing egg collector Chris “Willow” Wilson and leaving Robinson a paraplegic.
Their employer, helicopter operator and reality TV star Matt Wright, was found guilty in December of attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to the crash investigation.
The star of hit TV shows Outback Wrangler and Wild Croc Territory is behind bars in Darwin, serving a five-month term for trying to tamper with evidence to cover up the disconnecting of flight time meters.
Wright was not accused of causing the crash, the death of his co-star Wilson or the injuries of Robinson and is not involved in the egg-stealing case.