Canberra - Police are searching for four men who set three crocodiles free in an Australian school at the weekend.
The saltwater crocodiles were released in the administration offices of Taninmin College at Humpty Doo, in the Northern Territory, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Four men broke into the offices after dumping the crocodiles inside through a hatch in the front door and ransacked the offices.
But Luke McLaren, a ranger who helped capture the crocodiles, said the poor health of the reptiles meant they would likely have to be put down.
"Basically skin and bones, not much left of them, they were really quiet and easy to catch," McLaren told the ABC on Monday.
"Really poor skin condition, like they haven't been kept in water for quite a while, haven't been fed, and one of them looked to be blind (as a result of neglect).
undefined"We'll determine what farm they're from and we'll try to take them back to that farm but looking at their condition it's likely they'll have to be destroyed."
The crocodiles dumped at the school ranged in size from 1.5m to 2m which is on the small end of the scale for saltwater crocodiles which can grow to be six metres long. People convicted of interfering with a protected species in Australia, such as saltwater crocodiles, face a jail term of up to five years and fines up to A$55,000.
Xinhua