How a mother of three became a legend among crocodile hunters

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

“Even when I spend hours up to my waist in the mud, making my way through thickets and swamps, you know, one glance at my manicured nails on the trigger of the gun is enough to improve my mood,” Christina Pavlovsky once said. This petite woman, an immigrant from Poland, at one time became a real legend throughout Australia, as the most formidable crocodile hunter.

Krystyna Pawlowski was a short woman (162 cm), a little plump, but very attentive to herself - she always wore red lipstick, manicured nails (usually also bright red) and dresses corresponding to the latest fashion … This did not fit in the head of the public with her occupation at all - Christina was a crocodile hunter and was the best in her business. But, perhaps, thanks to this dissonance, she became a world celebrity.

A new career in the life of Christina began in 1955, when the Pavlovski family - Christina, Ron and their three children - came to the coast of Australia to rest. Christina's son Georg suddenly saw that a crocodile was approaching three-year-old Barbara. He screamed, and then Ron, Christina's husband, grabbed a gun and shot the animal right between the eyes. Later, they took the crocodile to their settlement, found a man who helped them skin it, and sent the skin to a dealer. For this they received 10 pounds. “In those days, £ 13 was a normal weekly salary,” says Georg. - So dad then thought that something could be thought up out of this.

So the family began to hunt for crocodiles. Ron and Christina began to go together in search of crocodiles, and pretty soon it turned out that Christina shoots not only well, but great. “She was better at shooting a pistol than I was, and she was much better at shooting a gun at moving targets from a boat on the move,” Ron told reporters at the time. "We can both hit the bottle from a hundred meters, but Christina can shoot a second time and hit the same hole."

And three years after the start of her hunting career, Christina shot the largest crocodile in Australia. However, that crocodile is still considered the largest. This monster was 8, 6 meters long, and local hunters have been chasing it for several years. Christina shot him straight between the eyes. It became a real sensation.

They started talking about Christina all over the country. And, as her son Georg admits, then it really infuriated the rest of the hunters. “There was a guy in the north who swore that no one in the world could skin a crocodile faster than him. She and my mother organized a competition. She skinned the crocodile, peeled the skin, greased the meat, rolled it, made herself a cup of coffee, and he was just finishing peeling off the skin."

Now the children of Christina and Ron are often asked what it was like to grow up in such a family, where every day, the crocodiles are nearby - now alive, now dead. Georg says: “Yes, it was usual for us. We have never been scared”. True, he also recalls one episode when he found his younger brother Stefan sitting on a crocodile. “He was so proud that he shot such a big beast, and I looked at him and said - you know, I have never seen anyone so close to a live crocodile. He then jumped up and looked at the beast - and that really had his eyes still open and looked at me meaningfully. Then the brother shot him in the head again."

Thinking about Christina, people remember such a story that in her entire career she shot wide of the mark only three times. This could be quite true, since this miniature Polish woman had about 10,000 dead crocodiles on her account. “At the time, people weren't thinking about preserving the species,” says Georg. - But my parents at some point started talking about it. They realized that killing crocodiles on such a scale could end up killing them all. And then they created several farms where the crocodiles were safe. These were the first nature reserves in Australia. And maybe all over the world."

At some point, the entire Pavlovski family was busy preserving Australian nature. They created funds that provided funding for the protection of animals, and gradually this initiative was taken up around the globe.

But how you can cuddle a real crocodile, you can find out from our article "Sacred reptiles from the lake, where local children swim without fear."