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National Geographic uses GoPros to capture point of view crocodile attacks

Sep 15, 2015 by Liron Samuels 3 Comments

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Croc_GoPro

Source: YouTube/National Geographic

Looking to learn more about the mysterious lives of Australia’s saltwater crocodiles, National Geographic’s Young Explorer Trevor Frost set out to capture unique footage of the world’s biggest crocodiles.

His tools: toy remote-controlled boats, foam blocks, duct tape and a handful of GoPro cameras.

His goal: get the “salties” to take a shot at the unusual prey.

The results: National Geographic worthy point-of-view footage of how the crocs bite their prey.

Frost, together with videographer Melissa Lesh, travelled to Northern Australia to film the powerful reptiles near the city of Darwin.

Considering the massive size of the crocs, with males averaging 5 meters and 450 kg, the duo’s camera setup was surprisingly small and lightweight. The team simply mounted a GoPro to the top of a remote-controlled boat and used duct tape to attach protective foam blocks around the camera.

Clarifying that there was nothing fancy about their rig, not even the RC boat, Lesh told NG that it was “the kind you would find at a toy store or hobby shop”.

Frost and Lesh spent a month with the crocs and have nine POV bites, as well as other awesome footage, to show for it. This unique footage also shows various strategies the crocs use to capture prey.

I bet by this point some of you are wondering how many GoPros were sacrificed in the name of science, and unbelievably the answer is none! That’s right, nine times the animals with the strongest bite ever measured (4,900 kg per square inch of pressure) chomped down on the flimsy contraptions but the duct-taped foam worked like magic.

An example of one of the bites, although unsuccessful, can be seen below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trevor Frost (@tbfrost)

The prehistoric-looking reptiles were almost hunted to extinction, but preserved habitat and regulated hunting allowed the Australian salties’ population to recover over the last 30 years to roughly 100,000. The impressive recovery of the crocodile population, along with the never ending increase in human populations, has lead to a number of fatal interactions and some are now calling to kill some crocs to control their population.

That being said Foster, as well as other crocodilian experts, claims that culling is not the answer and that people need to be educated about safety around the animals.

According to Business Insider this was Frost’s first feature story, and he hopes the feature will be the start of an education campaign.

Foster and Lesh will be returning to Darwin in December to capture more footage of these incredible crocodiles.

By the way, remember I mentioned the pair captured awesome footage other than the bites? Check this out:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trevor Frost (@tbfrost)

[via National Geographic]

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Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With: australia, Conservation, GoPro, Melissa Lesh, National Geographic, Point of View, Reptiles, Saltwater Crocodile, Trevor Frost

Liron Samuels: from diyphotography.net

About Liron Samuels

Liron Samuels is a wildlife and commercial photographer based in Israel.

When he isn't waking up at 4am to take photos of nature, he stays awake until 4am taking photos of the night skies or time lapses.

You can see more of his work on his website or follow him on Facebook.

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