SectoBoss: Yeah, they did. Salties at that. Bunch of geologists working on a mineralogical survey. We had hired a croc-hunting boat in the off season, because we were going up the Arimea River taking mud samples from the banks and the riverbed at intervals. This was back before salties were protected, when they were hunted wild rather than farmed as now, but the boats used to be hired out for other things in the off season. Including the taking of mud samples. But one of the young geologists thought the fishing-with-explosives thing would be fun to try, he'd heard about it somewhere. The man was an idiot, and he persuaded some of the crew to try it. . My arguments about not disrupting the river didn't work. Eventually, the more pointed dissuasions of the locals did, since his activities mucked up the fishing for everything else as well.
Lars: Totally agree with you! I'm a bit of a fuddy-duddy when it comes to that sort of foolishness, having been in several places where people did that sort of stuff (and other even stupider things, like tearing up the wilga scrub with a long chain stretched between two tractors), and I wish they wouldn't.
