A man scrubs crocodile carcasses before skinning them, 2000 (photo)

A man scrubs crocodile carcasses before skinning them. This company farms12,000 crocodiles on 40 wet hectares south of Cairns. The farm has become a tourist attraction. "If they're endangered because of poaching... farm them!" This has been theposition of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative advocacy group, when analyzing such species as the African elephant. While millions of acres were used for cattle and sheep, introduced species that taxed theland's ability to supportthem, native crocodiles which have lived on the continent for millions ofyears, were declared threatened and a ban on hunting them was put into place. Now conservation organizations see the value in farming crocodiles for food and leather. Theindustry is in its infancy, but growing. Photo by Cary Sol Wolinsky