The link between an "up yours claw" crocodile foot novelty key ring and protecting one of the world's most dangerous predators may be hard to make, but for Croc Stock and Barra's Aaron Rodwell, it makes perfect sense.
Rodwell sells all things croc at market stalls around Darwin and online to customers around the world itching for a piece of a reptile that would kill as soon as look at them in the wild
There's handbags, wallets, belts, decorative skulls, tooth necklaces, guitar straps, vests, boots, and crocodile claws arrange to give someone the finger. Some higher-end items are manufactured overseas but most of are made in Australia.
Rodwell's headquarters in Humpty Doo is filled with freezers holding teetering stacks of croc heads waiting to be boiled. There's tables covered in skulls, a huge, whole hide, and boxes labelled with "teeth" or "front left feet".
"Quite often people will come into my shop and be a bit disgusted or shocked by the sight of crocodile products," he told AAP.
"I hear, 'oh, poor crocodiles'. But poor chickens, poor cows, poor ducks, poor sheep, poor fish, poor all the animals we eat. It's no different."
The Northern Territory crocodile industry turned over about $25 million last year, and the government expects that to double by 2020 as high-end global luxury brands buy up local crocodile farms to control production chain.
Rodwell believes the conservation of the species, protected since 1971, goes hand in hand with job creation - whether that be an Aboriginal person in a remote Arnhem Land community paid to harvest eggs from wild crocodile nests, a worker on a crocodile farm, or operators of jumping croc cruises.
"It's an industry that's obviously a huge part of the territory's economy, there's lots of jobs it's given to people, I know without a doubt it's played a massive part in why there's a huge population of (wild) saltwater crocodiles now," Rodwell says.
The animals are treated humanely and croc farmers have high and complex standards to maintain, he says.
Skins are the main game, although croc meat is also sold at supermarkets around the country.
"They take great care of the crocodiles because they want an A-grade skin that doesn't have any marks or blemishes so it can be turned into a $100,000 Louis Vuitton handbag," Rodwell says.
"Over the years the crocodile farms have even messed around with [putting] vests and stuff put over the crocodiles so their bellies are protected ... like an old lady would do with her little poodle."
Anything that adds crocodiles value and encourages people to respect and understand the animals benefits science as well as business, Rodwell says.
Charlie Manolis is chief scientist at Crocodylus Park in Darwin, a hybrid zoo-research centre-farm.
When crocodiles were endangered it was easier to get public support for conservation. But now wild numbers have exploded to more than 100,000 in the top end, it's a harder sell.
"When you've only got six predators left the public is usually very supportive ... when you've got 60,000 of them and they're trying to eat you and your children and your pets, things change," he observes.
Still, the industry has created economic incentives to promote conservation.
"We have an industry that wants to see lots of crocs in the wild, we have a tourism industry that wants to see crocodiles in the wild. We have landowners who have to live with them, who lose their cattle, and it's been about making those crocodiles valuable in some way and using them in a sustainable fashion," Manolis says.
Co-existence isn't always easy. Crocodiles dominate the headlines in the NT when people forget what lurks in the murky but idyllic top end waterways.
Recently, a Victorian man drowned after his tinny capsized and his friend had to throw spanners and sparkplugs to keep circling crocodiles at bay for hours before help arrived.
Cars regularly wash away at the tidal Cahill's Crossing in Kakadu while hungry crocodiles watch, and there have been several instances this year of crocs being dumped in homes, backyards, or, in one case, a school office.
Last year, after an inquest into the deaths of two fisherman killed by crocodiles, the NT coroner observed territorians were becoming too complacent about the predator in their midst. The average size of wild crocodiles is increasing and a 3.5 metre tinny may no longer be big enough to protect its occupants against reptiles that can reach six metres in length.
But the territory government has ignored calls for a cull.
"Culling doesn't necessarily work for predators. They become very wary - one noise and they're underwater. And people get a false sense - out of sight out of mind," Manolis said.
"You can't wipe them all out ... nor will it be politically or ethically allowed. So I don't think culling is the answer."
The former CLP government supported the introduction of high-end trophy safari hunting of wild crocodiles and was furious when the idea was shut down by the federal government.
"You get people in Sydney and Melbourne complaining about how we do things up here. I say, go and unload 40,000 saltwater crocodiles in Sydney Harbour - now they can't swim, now they can't go down to the beach - and see what people say," Manolis said.
"Those people just don't understand it. They're city people, they don't have to deal with the biggest predator in the country in their backyard."
In the NT, crocodiles continue to find their way into backyards. And entrepreneurs like Rodwell are finding ways to live and work alongside them.
While wearing a top-notch Australian-made crocodile-skin belt, of course.
