14-foot crocodile that killed girl swimming in Australian creek is shot dead by rangers, police say

Rangers have shot dead a 14-foot crocodile in northern Australia after it killed a 12-year-old girl while she was swimming with her family last week, police said Wednesday.

The girl's death was the first fatal crocodile attack in the Northern Territory since 2018 when an Indigenous woman was killed while gathering mussels in a river. The attack has rekindled debate on whether more should be done to curb the crocodile population in the Northern Territory, where the protected species has increasingly encroached on human populations.

Wildlife rangers had been attempting to trap or shoot the crocodile since the girl was attacked last week in Mango Creek near Palumpa, an Outback Indigenous community in the Northern Territory.