Since the death of Gomek, a 17’ 9.5” Saltwater crocodile, the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park has been looking for just the right animal to act as his replacement. Gomek was the star attraction at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm from 1989 to 1997 and could never be truly replaced. However, people want to see giant crocodiles. We have had many offers, and have seen many crocodiles that might have made suitable display animals, but we wanted just the right one. It was important to find a young crocodile that had already reached an impressive size. We did not want to acquire a crocodile that was enormous, but may have been at the end of his life span. Of course, we also wanted a crocodile that was fairly attractive. Our staff has seen many massive animals, but most were not the perfect specimen we had in our minds.

We narrowed the species we were looking for to the Saltwater crocodile, Crocodylus porosus. This species has the largest range of any of the crocodilians and boasts the largest size as well. We started looking seriously at places that had large Saltwater crocodiles in captivity. There are several large farms in Papua New Guinea, as well as quite a few farms throughout Australia. Gomek was captured in New Guinea in 1968 by our friend, George Craig. George took Gomek to Australia and put him on display on Green Island for a number of years before he was brought to the United States. It was our assumption that exporting crocodiles from New Guinea would be easier than exporting from Australia. Australia has had a long history of being very protective of its wildlife, and export permits do not come easily. However, while talking to George, he said that he felt that things in Australia were changing and that with a little patience we might be able to obtain the proper permits. With George’s,and his grandson, Toody’s, help, we made the appropriate contacts and started investigating large captive crocodiles that were for sale in Australia, as well as the possibility of obtaining the appropriate permits.

In September of 2003, David Drysdale and I went to Cairns, Australia to see some crocodiles at the Cairns Crocodile Farm that George thought we might be interested in. There, we first laid eyes on Maximo. Maximo has been in a captive situation his entire life. His egg was collected by aborigines in Australia and hatched by them. Maximo was then sold as a youngster to the Cairns Crocodile Farm where he grew up to be one of their breeders. He is just over 30 years old and more than 15 feet long. He was living with two breeding females. He bred with both females every year, but only really spent time with one of them. Her name is Sydney, and we managed to bring her to Florida as well. Both Maximo and Sydney are beautiful animals with gorgeous black and yellow patterns. They are colored more like a Cuban crocodile than most Saltwater crocodiles.

The permitting turned out to be fairly straightforward. It helped considerably that these animals were captive born in Australia and were therefore CITES II animals instead of CITES I. CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement between Governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. CITES is an international agreement to which States (countries) adhere voluntarily. States that have agreed to be bound by the Convention ('joined' CITES) are known as Parties. Although CITES is legally binding on the Parties - in other words they have to implement the Convention - it does not take the place of national laws. Rather it provides a framework to be respected by each Party, which has to adopt its own domestic legislation to make sure that CITES is implemented at the national level. Not one species protected by CITES has become extinct as a result of trade since the Convention entered into force and, for many years, CITES has been among the largest conservation agreements in existence, with now 164 Parties. I had to provide many pages of information about our facility and our experience to obtain the necessary permits. However, as I was filling out the paperwork, I realized that if they didn’t issue the permit to us, they probably were not going to issue a permit to anyone. They wanted to know how long we have been in business. Answer: 110 years. They asked if we had experience working with this species. Answer: Yes, as well as every other crocodilian species on the planet. They asked if we had ever worked with crocodiles this size. Answer: Yes, Gomek. They asked about our credentials. Answer: We are accredited with the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, the Florida Attractions association, and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, etc.

As it turns out we made the correct decision to find our crocodiles in Australia. We have since attempted to help National Geographic Television export a couple of large porosus from New Guinea and then, most recently, attempted to export two Nile Crocodiles, Crocodylus niloticus, from Uganda. Both attempts ended in failure. It would seem that New Guinea has no desire to issue any such permits, and while we were issued CITES permits from Uganda, the paperwork was not filled out correctly by the CITES officer. In addition, the Solicitor General of Uganda decided he needed to be involved in the process, and put a hold on things. Australia is not opening a floodgate of animals for export out of their country. We happened to have the right connections and the right background to make this work. In fact, we were told that there have only ever been four Saltwater crocodiles exported out of Australia alive. Those include Gomek and his girlfriend, Annabel and now Maximo and Sydney. I have no way of knowing if this is actually true, but it is clear that it doesn’t happen often.

In October of 2003, David Kledzik, our Curator of Reptiles, went to Australia to help crate and transport Maximo and Sydney. Our two new crocodiles were shipped in wooden crates inside the belly of a Quantas, passenger plane from Cairns to Sydney and then from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles. They had to clear customs in L.A. and were then transferred to a cargo carrier, Kitty Hawk. On October 24th, I met a tired David Kledzik and two crocodiles in Orlando with a rented Ryder truck and drove them back to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.

We kept the two animals separate for the first few days. We didn’t want Maximo taking out any aggression on Sydney. After all, he outweighs her by more than 1,000 pounds. After five days we opened the shift door and allowed Sydney to enter Maximo’s exhibit. Within five minutes she was soliciting him by rubbing her chin up and down his back. They bred immediately and have spent most of their time in the exhibit side by side. They are on display in a large exhibit that affords our visitors both above ground viewing and underwater viewing. We are very pleased with our new Saltwater crocodiles and the way everything worked out. We refuse to exaggerate our animal’s credentials for the sake of advertising. Maximo is exactly 15’ 3” long and weighs 1,249 pounds. There are parks in the U.S. that are advertising hybrid crocodiles as Saltwater crocodiles, advertising 14 foot animals as “nearly 20-feet long”, and calling their animals the largest captive crocodile in the world. We feel that the truth is just as impressive, and we are sure our visitors appreciate it. We hope that Maximo grows to be the largest Saltwater crocodile in captivity some day, but for now we are extremely happy with him just the way he is.

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