American alligator and conservation efforts
The American alligator (Alligator mississippensis) is a large reptile native to the southeastern United States, known for its significant size, reaching lengths of 8 to 15 feet and weights up to 1,000 pounds. Once classified as an endangered species due to overhunting for their hides in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, concerted conservation efforts, including legal protections established in the 1970s, have led to a remarkable recovery of their populations. By 1987, the American alligator was removed from the endangered species list, and it is now classified as a species of least concern.
Despite their recovery, American alligators face ongoing challenges, primarily from habitat destruction due to land development and pollution, which threaten their natural environments. Interestingly, as human habitats encroach upon alligator territories, encounters between the two have increased, sometimes resulting in alligators appearing in residential areas and public spaces. While attacks on humans are rare, there has been a slight uptick in such incidents as alligators adapt to their changing surroundings. Conservation efforts remain vital, particularly as environmental issues, such as pollution from pesticides, continue to pose risks to their populations. Understanding the dynamics between human activity and alligator habitats is crucial for their ongoing conservation.
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American alligator and conservation efforts
DEFINITION: Crocodilian species native to the southeastern United States
Once an endangered species, the American alligator made a striking comeback in the last few decades of the twentieth century, thanks to conservation efforts.
The American alligator (Alligator mississippensis) is a surviving member of the crocodilians—a family of reptiles that roamed the earth along with dinosaurs 230 million years ago. Ranging between 2.5 and 4.6 meters (8 to 15 feet) in length and weighing up to 450 kilograms (1,000 pounds), it is the largest reptile in North America.
The American alligator inhabits coastal areas, swamps, ponds, and marshes of the southeastern United States, from North Carolina to Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Texas. Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to come across the American alligator, which they named el lagarto (“the lizard”), an expression Americans later turned into “alligator.” Various descriptions of alligators by eighteenth century trappers, explorers, adventurers, and naturalists quickly earned the reptile a place in legend and folklore. Americans and Europeans alike became fascinated with false, but entertaining, portrayals of the reptile as an almost mythological, smoke-breathing dragon.
Although white southerners and Native Americans hunted the alligator for centuries, the reptile faced no serious, widespread threat as a species until the 1870’s, when a worldwide demand arose for its soft hides, which were turned into belts, hats, shoes, and handbags. Their value grew in the following decades, and by the 1940’s alligator populations were so dangerously reduced that southern states outlawed the hunting and trapping of the reptiles. These actions, however, stimulated illegal poaching during the 1960s and drove the alligator to the brink of extinction.
In 1973 the U.S. government put the alligator—along with its cousin, the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus)—on the endangered species list and banned the trafficking of its hides. The protection worked so well that alligators were removed from the endangered list in 1987, and as of the mid-2020s, are considered a species of least concern. Open hunting of alligators is still illegal, though Florida and Louisiana allow permitted hunts to control alligator populations and protect fur-bearing animals.
New problems, however, confront the American alligator. Land development continues to destroy its natural habitat, but human activity also creates new artificial living spaces for alligators in canals and drainage ditches. These new environs often put alligators in close proximity to humans. As a result, alligators commonly appear in the swimming pools or yards of private homes, on docks, at highway toll booths, and even at schools and shopping centers, and their encounters with humans are on the rise. Though alligators feed mainly on fish, snails, crabs, amphibians, and small mammals, they also occasionally consume dogs, cats, and even calves. Attacks on humans, especially small children, are rare—only thirty people were killed by alligators from 1948 to 2023—but have increased somewhat as humans encounter alligators more frequently.
Pollution also threatens alligators. In 1996, researchers from the University of Florida reported serious reproductive problems among alligators in Lake Apopka, Florida’s third-largest lake. The researchers suspected that the fertility problems were the result of a 1980 chemical spill and agricultural pesticide runoff into the lake. According to one University of Florida study, Lake Apopka lost 90 percent of its alligator population in a recent twenty-year period. More research is needed to determine whether the Lake Apopka situation is an isolated case or an indicator of a wider problem that could again put alligators in grave danger.
Bibliography
Fujisaki, Ikuko, et al. “Possible Generational Effects of Habitat Degradation on Alligator Reproduction.” Journal of Wildlife Management 71 (September, 2007): 2284-2289.
Izadi Elahe. "We Saved the Alligators from Extinction—Then Moved into Their Territory." The Washington Post, 17 June 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/06/17/we-saved-the-alligators-from-extinction-then-moved-into-their-territory/. Accessed 12 July 2024.
Lockwood, C. C. The Alligator Book. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
Talcott, Anthony. "How Many People Have Been Killed by Alligators in Florida? The Number May Surprise You." Click Orlando, 26 May 2024, www.clickorlando.com/features/2024/05/26/how-many-people-have-been-killed-by-alligators-in-florida-the-number-may-surprise-you/. Accessed 12 July 2024.