This water may look peaceful and tranquil, but it's crocodile territory.
Steve had a real desire to unlock the secrets of the crocodile,
and he did it with a project tracking crocs from space...
using satellite transmitters.
And the whole family can get close and share what Steve loved most...
as we attach satellite trackers to some of the world's biggest crocodiles.
But for young Robert, it's too much excitement.
And he's out for the count.
G'day everyone. It's Robert here.
And I thought while we are on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve
next to the Wenlock River trapping crocodiles...
I'd talk you through a little bit about the mechanics behind building a crocodile trap.
It's all about making sure our crocodiles...
from the first moment they get caught, to the moment they're released.
There's no stress.
We want it to be really nice and comfortable.
And that comes with using natural materials from the landscape
to hopefully lure them in.
These are all the exact same techniques that Dad came up with.
Everything that we do here is exactly what he did. To the tee.
And so we're able to make sure that we can continue effectively catching crocodiles...
and also keep his mission and message alive.
Catching and relocating crocodiles is my expertise.
I learned off my dad when I was a boy.
Let's go get 'em!
I'm going to show you how to capture wild crocodiles.
This is the trap that I used to catch big rouge crocodiles.
It's really strong, in fact-
Hey, hey!
[Terri] Gotcha. [Steve] You can see.
How it's got a drawstring on the other end.
So once you get your crocodile trapped in here, he can bite and
he can't get out.
He can thrash around, and there's no way he's able to get out.
And it's soft.
It won't hurt the crocodile like steel or big wooden objects.
[Robert] Now we're going to be building a bag trap.
First step when we get to a new location, we've got this beautiful big tree.
We've got the river here.
It's a nice, shady spot.
And we're looking for signs of crocodiles.
We always want to stay around three or four meters back from the water's edge
just to be safe. You never know.
And we're looking for a big, robust tree, the way in which a bag trap works.
Weight bags, hauled up into the top of a large tree.
The bag is set up down below.
When the crocodile sets off, the trap grabs the bait that pulls a pin which
releases bags from the top of the tree, they fall to the ground.
That bag is tied to a rope around the mouth of the trap as they fall.
Mouth of the trap closes.
That big net becomes a nice, tight little habitat for the croc
to just chill out until we can get to him.
Now, first step is putting a ring in the tree.
Then we start to map out where the trap is going to go.
Lining up with those bag.
Imagine the bag is going to fall here.
That rope is going to attach to the mouth of the trap right here.
Got all the bare bones laid out now.
All the ropes ready to go.
And as we start to string it up, we'll kind of figure it out as we go along
and make sure this will be the best possible trap to catch a croc.
Chandler and Hamish are currently undoing this net.
Now that comes out into a nice big bag.
You feel that it's really soft when the crocodile is in this trap,
When it pulls up tight...
He can roll, he can carry on and do whatever he wants...
And it's nice and soft.
It's impossible for him to injure himself through this whole process.
It's all about making it really nice on the crocodiles.
And once we actually start catching the croc and processing him
it happens within the hour.
It's all quick, it's all very effective.
So what I'm doing here,
I've got, a little weight on the end of the string.
Hopefully throw it over the fork of the tree that I want to get to so that I can then
tie my climbing rope all the way around it and then get up
to the top of the tree.
Safety!
Look at that!
Alright, so here we have an almost-finished trap.
At the moment, we're just working on the very last step.
The final touch of any finished trap is to add barricade,
and we just use old dead logs and sticks and twig, whatever we can find.
And we build up a big natural barricade around the entire trap.
When he comes up and he smells a piece of bait in the back of the trap,
he's going to try anything he can do not to go straight up the front.
Crocs are smart.
So with this barricade, he's going to come around.
He won't find any openings except for that big one right up the front.
If he wants that food, he's going to have to go through the trap itself.
This also helps to camouflage it, break up its shape,
and make it look a little bit more natural.
The bag is all strung up here.
You can see that mouth rope which is looped all the way up to the bags.
This is our trigger rope.
The trigger mechanism is over here.
It's an incredibly ingenious design that dad came up with.
Now, this rope here is what goes over that rail, attaches to the bait.
Croc pulls on it.
That comes out.
Lever comes up, pin pops out.
And the bags drop to the floor.
The mouth is pulled up so you can see the trap is now taking shape.
We're just about done.
And now we're ready for the most important part of any croc trap...
Getting a croc in it.
We've got a 14 plus in Yellow Bank.
He's big.