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American Alligator

Alligators are found throughout the southeast, as far west as Texas and as far north as the Carolinas. An estimated one million alligators reside in many of the thousands of lakes and tens-of-thousands of acres of marsh and swampland in Florida. The reptiles are as much a symbol of the state as palm trees and white sand beaches. In the wild, alligators can live for 30 to 35 years. Courtship and breeding take place from April to May. In June and July, female gators lay 20-50 eggs in nests of mounded vegetation, where the eggs incubate for two months. The female remains in the area to defend the nest against raccoons and other egg-eating predators. Six- to eight-inch long alligators hatch out in mid-August to mid-September; unlike the adults, these youngsters are banded or splotched with yellow, though they darken as they mature.

Wading birds, raccoons, bobcats, otters, snakes, large bass and larger alligators often eat young gators, especially those less than two years old. Once alligators are about four feet long, their greatest enemies are larger gators and people, though the effect of the latter has been reduced through strict laws and limited, controlled hunts. Alligators were placed on the endangered species list in 1973, and then delisted in 1987 when their population rebounded.

Today, the greatest environmental threats to alligators are habitat loss and pollution. As Florida’s human population continues to encroach on alligator habitat, encounters between the two species are inevitable. Human fatalities due to alligators are rare, but 12,000 to 14,000 nuisance gators are reported to the state each year and licensed trappers kill 5,000 of these.