The Darwin nursery that's home to hundreds of baby crocodiles
About 1,000 baby saltwater crocodiles are hatched at Crocodylus Park every wet season. (ABC News: Michael Franchi)
Looking at a mighty five-metre saltwater crocodile, it's hard to imagine that it was once small enough to be held in the palm of a human hand.
It's a marvel of nature that astounds even those working at Darwin wildlife park Crocodylus Park, who help bring about 1,000 baby crocodiles into the world each year.
"Physically, looking at this baby and then looking at this large five-metre male, it's mind-blowing to look at the difference and just go, 'how does this happen?'" said park manager Emily Moyes.
Emily Moyes holds a baby crocodile just minutes after it was hatched. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)
"It's quite surreal because you look at this creature and you just think, 'oh my goodness, it's so small, it's so cute'.
"They're so cute when they're little, not so much when they're big."
Crocodylus Park is home to about 300 crocodiles of all different sizes, from just a few months' old to some nearing 80 years.
But what visitors don't usually get to see is how the apex predator begins life as a tiny hatchling.
Ms Moyes said the park's captive breeding program had been running behind the scenes since the park opened in 1994, largely to manage its crocodile numbers.
Crocodiles usually start nesting when monsoonal rains begin in November. (ABC News)
"Some of the enclosures that they are in, they're paired, so they do breed," Ms Moyes said.
"If we didn't collect the eggs … we'd have all these baby crocodiles running around the park, which obviously isn't ideal."
Selling the hatchlings to one of the Northern Territory's local crocodile farms helps bring some revenue to the park over the wet season — which is also crocodiles' breeding season — when visitor numbers dip.
Removing the eggs from nests and incubating them improves the hatchlings' chance of survival. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)
The incubation process the park uses also increases the odds the eggs will produce male hatchlings, which are worth more when they're sold.
"We incubate at 32 degrees and it will predominantly give us males,"Ms Moyes said.
"If you think about it like baking a cake, it's a good temperature to incubate out — it produces really healthy hatchlings."
Jessica Grills (left) is Crocodylus Park's head crocodile keeper. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)
Jessica Grills has the daring job of getting her "hands and head in a nest" to collect eggs from mother crocodiles.
She said it's important to collect the eggs as soon as they're laid, as heat, floods and prey such as birds, fish and even other crocodiles can all pose a threat to the clutch.
"We're pulling out about say 50 to 60, but some nests do have up to 70 eggs," she said.
Baby crocodiles will "pip" their shells when they start to hatch. (ABC News)
After being incubated in a warm and humid room for about 80 days, one baby crocodile in the clutch will "pip" its snout through its egg's shell.
"Some can be really lazy, and others can pip and then get out of the egg straight away, like they just wanna know what the world is about," Ms Grills said.
"Others can take up to a full day."
On the same day they hatch, the baby reptiles are taken to a crocodile farm where they're raised for meat and leather goods.
"Whether its fate is to grow into a massive five-metre crocodile, or whether it is to go into the industry to be processed into goods … it's really important to be able to see that whole process and where it starts and where it finishes," Ms Moyes said.