Matt Wright the Outback Wrangler: Interview

This article was originally published in the August 2012 issue of 4x4 Australia.

When I caught up with Matt Wright in Sydney recently, the famous adventurer and star of Nat Geo Wild’s Outback Wrangler is just back from a month in the Congo hunting a crocodile that had been eating villagers.

We don’t know how big it is but it took a well-known kayaker, Hendrik Coetzee, and that sparked a bit more interest in why this crocodile’s just coming out of the blue and grabbing people out of boats.

“So I went over there to try and find him. While we didn’t find the one we were after we caught a couple more, but the big fella, no – didn’t even sight him.

“It was the middle of the wet season, high water, tough conditions, so now we’re looking at probably going back in October, September.”

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Despite crocodile attacks being much more common in the Congo than in Australia, Matt says there are a lot more crocs in Australia’s Top End.

“The numbers here in Australia are a lot higher, but what we have here are more modern boats that crocodiles can’t come in to, and no-one really goes and washes on the edge of rivers. Occasionally, a fisherman might get taken here or a crocodile might start attacking boats, but we move pretty quickly on it, and we move that crocodile out of that area.”

While crocodile numbers have increased significantly in the Top End over the past few decades, Matt disputes any claims that conservation has lead to there being too many crocs.

“I don’t think crocodile numbers are out of control, they’re just coming back to their normal numbers before they all got shot-out in the 70s.

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“Now, when you have a big wet season and there are a lot of floods, crocodiles end up in places they shouldn’t be and they’ve just got to be removed and put back in their waterways. If they end up
in someone’s pool, you don’t have to kill ’em, just put ’em back in a waterway, or into a park or [crocodile] farm.”

Despite being a conservationist, Matt says he has no problem with the crocodile farms that breed the animals for use in different products, and prefers this option to shooting crocodiles. “A lot of my work is collecting crocodile eggs, and those eggs go into the parks, they get incubated, they get hatched and three or four years later they get killed. It’s just like a cattle station really; you grow ’em out, you farm them.

“What [these farms] have done now is pretty much conserved the crocodile. We go out and collect the eggs, the station owners are happy because they get royalties for having crocodiles on their properties, so they don’t mind one or two cattle getting taken if they get a cheque at the end of the year for the crocodile eggs there.

“The eggs then go back to the farm, they get hatched out, they get raised and then get sold to an overseas market. Since this has all come into play, crocodile numbers are coming back and coming
back quite rapidly.”

“What we don’t want is safari hunting. There’s talk about safari hunting coming in, shooting these crocodiles, but if it’s not regulated right it’s going to be a major problem. They’re going to start shooting all the wild breeding population, whereas going and collecting the eggs, it keeps a balance.”

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As well as growing up in Cairns and Papua New Guinea, Matt spent much of his youth in South Australia. “I had a passion for wildlife when I was a kid,” says Matt when asked how he became a man who wrestles crocodiles and other large animals.

“I was always fishing and looking for stuff, hands-on with any sort of wildlife, more so the deadly ones – mum hated it. Then as I got older, about 11 or 12, when I was at mates’ places, on farms and that, the old farmer would want to kill any snakes and I’d say, ‘No, no, I’ll catch it and I’ll move it’.”

Matt’s conservation instinct obviously developed at a very young age and once he’d finished school he headed north from South Oz. “I got in my Toyota and headed up to Alice Springs, Arnhem Land, back to Darwin, back down to Katherine. As I headed through Central Australia, I was working with brumbies and bulls, then further north it was bigger snakes and crocodiles and fish … it just grew with me.

“Then I started flying [choppers], mustering from the air, so it was buffalo and big bulls … and then it was crocodile-egg collecting, and there was no [other] pilot that wanted to do any of that – catch and remove crocodiles. I was 22, just had my licence, green pilot, got thrown into it and I loved it. I wasn’t too worried if I was getting paid or not, I just loved doing it.”

So what are Matt’s favourite parts of Australia? “Broome, Derby, that’s just untouched wilderness, amazing country, and then you fly around the Northern Territory, you’ve got your open flood-plains, masses of crocodiles, hands-on work there, shoot across to Cairns and you’ve got the Great Barrier Reef – if I could have it all in one area it’d be perfect – the Top End of Australia really.

“But I like South Australia and WA, catch up with my mates and go for a surf.

“I spent about a year at Kings Canyon, Ayers Rock, and I loved it. Got all the scorpions, death adders, inland taipans…”

When it comes to his favourite place it really sounds like Matt can’t choose, but when it comes to vehicles he’s a one-make man.

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“I started with an old LandCruiser and that stayed with me for six or seven years before it got turned into an old bull-catcher; it’s still out there catching bulls now. I still drive a LandCruiser.

“For what we do, they’re such a hardy car. I’ve had big crocodiles, just load ’em up full of crocs and they just go anywhere once you get them set-up right. It’s pretty much just the outback car the old LandCruiser."

Having done a lot of outback travel over the years, Matt knows the importance of being prepared for all eventualities. When asked what was the most important lesson he’d learnt from
his travelling experiences, he responded with “organisation”.

“Your maintenance on your vehicles – especially when you’re going out in the middle of nowhere, you don’t want to get stuck out there – so you need a good vehicle that isn’t going to break down, and then if you do break down then make sure you have all your rations there. Preparation.”

And when he’s travelling in Australia, Matt is never alone thanks to his dog, Nash, who’s always by his side.

“She’s an American bulldog. She’s on the Sunshine Coast now but she travels everywhere with me, except overseas – she flies in the helicopter, the back of the ute.

“She got bitten on the snout by a crocodile the other day. We were out at night and I had to clean up a few. It was only a little one, she’s in the boat and she gets pretty excited and, anyway, she stuck her nose over the side of the boat and it’s nipped her on the snout.”

Matt Wright really is one of those true outback characters who seem too confined in the city. When I ask him what he thought of being in town, his response is clear.

“I come down [to Sydney] to get a few things sorted out, and it’s good to catch up with a few of my mates who live by the beach. When I go to Manly I’ll go for a surf, but as far as the city goes I don’t venture out much. I’m not a big fan of shopping, I like my space and I like my freedom.”

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Catching a big croc while filming a segment for Channel 7’s Sunday Night program was what got Matt noticed, not just in Australia, but around the world.

“We had Discovery, Nat Geo, a whole lot of different networks wanting to do something, but I had to make sure that what we did was not going to destroy my whole reputation in my field of work. I had to stick to my guns and say ‘No, this is how it’s going to come about, otherwise I can’t do it’.

“I wanted to show people everything about the work that I did – relocating, animal transfers – and it became bigger when I started working in Canada and Africa, so it became a pretty big project and we signed on with National Geographic, came up with the concept, agreed on the name and we did Outback Wrangler.

“It’s definitely not a cheap show to make, and it’s very hard to make one-hour shows to keep it interesting where people aren’t going to switch off. So what I’d normally do in a year had to be crammed into a month: ‘Today you need to do this, today you need to do that, catch an elephant, catch a crocodile, catch a cobra, can you do all that?’ Yeah, if I find one, of course [laughs]. But it worked and it went well, so I just think that my field of work, and the different work that I’ve done made the show– that I can work with a variety of animals makes the show.”

Outback Wrangler is a huge success and Matt plans to do more of the same in the near future.

“We’re going to make it bigger and better. Shoot half-hour shows this time [down from one hour], still global, a lot of my work’s in Canada, and back to Africa trans-locating large animals to stop them getting poached… Columbia, we’re looking at trying to work with this organisation to move these hippos… we’ll be catching and tagging a few jaguars… there’s a lot to do.”

Matt Wright is a man on a roll and it obviously looks like there’s no slowing him down just yet.