 The skin of the New Guinea crocodile is valuable and in the 1950s and 1960s the animals in the northern population were heavily hunted to a point where they might have become extinct . Around 1970 , legislation was put in place and they received some protection . In the period 1977 to 1980 , the harvest of wild skins was over 20 @,@ 000 per year but in the 1980s this declined to 12 @,@ 000 to 20 @,@ 000 . As well as this , some 2 @,@ 500 to 10 @,@ 000 eggs and hatchlings were collected annually to raise on ranches . However , in 1995 , the largest ranch on the island initiated a change of strategy to concentrate on raising the saltwater crocodile , and demand for the eggs and juveniles of the New Guinea crocodile dried up . Since then , cropping of wild animals has been controlled in both Indonesia and Papua New Guinea . In the former it is limited to a belly width of 25 to 51 cm ( 10 to 20 in ) for wet skins and in the latter to salted skins with a belly width of 18 to 51 cm ( 7 to 20 in ) . Some eggs and hatchlings are still removed from the nest and raised in enclosures and a similar programme has more recently been initiated for southern populations . 
