KEYS HISTORY: THE CROCODILES ARE COMING BACK

Spoiler alert: the Florida Keys are a unique string of islands. To add one more reason, South Florida and the Keys are the only places in the world where alligators and crocodiles coexist. Both have been living here since before the first people arrived all those thousands of years ago. 

They live elsewhere. The natural range of Crocodylus acutus, the American crocodile, stretches from the Florida mainland to Caribbean islands like Hispaniola and Jamaica and south from Mexico to Peru. In the first half of the 20^th century, it was not uncommon to see references to them in newspapers. The Miami News reported on June 26, 1908: “A monster crocodile measuring 9 feet, 4 inches was killed by Capt. Chas. Anderson on the 17^th, on Matecumbe. A few moments more and the saurian would have devoured the captain’s fine bird dog.” 

The Pensacola News Journal’s May 20, 1906 edition told an interesting story about Warren Frazee, known as Alligator Joe. Frazee claimed to have the world’s largest collection of alligators and crocodiles. The newspaper story was about “over 2,000 crocodiles and alligators” from Alligator Joe’s collection being transported aboard railroad cars to Kansas City, Missouri, where they would be exhibited at Electric Park over the summer. “In the collection is the mammoth crocodile ‘Miami Joe,’ which is said to be the largest in captivity. It is seventeen and a half feet in length and tips the beam at 1,700 pounds. This monster man-eater was captured by none other than Alligator Joe himself about six months ago in the Florida Keys, and its owner says that soon after it was placed in captivity, it threw up quantities of human bones and large portions of red shirts.”

Some species of crocodiles are absolute man-eaters; the Nile crocodile and Australia’s saltwater crocs rack up body counts every year. Our local crocodiles are not as aggressive or even as aggressive as alligators, which account for about eight attacks yearly. American crocodiles are a generally reclusive species, and their natural inclination is to avoid people, making negative encounters with them rare events.

There could be several reasons for the anecdote in Alligator Joe’s story. The bones could have belonged to someone who had made the mistake of attempting to capture the reptile. Also, he was promoting an exhibition, and having a “man-eater” in the collection might certainly boost audience attendance. It could have been Alligator Joe puffing.

Stories told about man-eating crocodiles make an impression. The Key West Citizen published a story on April 9, 1926, that included this nugget about the Civil War years: “The horrors of the Dry Tortugas were heightened in public imagination by the story that the wide and deep moat about Fort Jefferson was thickly inhabited by man-eating crocodiles eager to nip off the legs of escaping prisoners. It was not revealed upon what these guardians fed when escaping prisoners were few.”

Once hunted for their hides and nearly to extinction, stories of expeditions into the Keys appear not infrequently in the old newspapers. The Miami Herald on March 16, 1916 reported: “Messrs. M.G. Heim and L.J. Stranahan returned yesterday on Heim’s yacht, Dragon, from a trip to the Florida Keys, where they caught several crocodiles, some tarpon, sawfish, and a porpoise.” The Palm Beach Post on Nov. 28, 1916 said: “Samuel A. Barfield, accompanied by his wife, were expected yesterday from his alligator and crocodile hunt down in the Florida Keys.”

The hunting expeditions took their toll. The Palm Beach Post said on April 11, 1922: “Just now crocodiles are scarce and very high in price, due to the fact that they have almost been exterminated in the canals and creeks.” Because their hides were coveted, the hunting continued. On Dec. 11, 1949, the Miami Herald published a story that included this note: “Crocodiles are found in the wild state now only in the Cape Sable and Lake Surprise area and near the junction of the Florida Keys and the mainland. At one time, crocodiles were numerous from Lake Worth to Key West.”

For a long time, they became rare visitors to the Florida Keys, and for decades, stories about crocodiles in the Keys went relatively untold. The American crocodile has been slowly reclaiming its old stomping grounds in the Keys. These days, they are no longer unusual, and that’s a good thing. In the 1970s, it was looking less than rosy for them. Nesting sites were limited to the northeast reaches of Florida Bay and North Key Largo. Presumably, there was a smattering of nesting sites on the hundreds of islands between the Overseas Highway and Cape Sable. 

With only a few hundred left in the wild, the American crocodile became officially protected when it was listed as an endangered species in 1975. As development continued to encroach on their native habitat, measures were taken to offer a reprieve. The good news is that their population numbers have risen. Establishing the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge at North Key Largo in 1980 was an important step.

Because the crocodile population had increased and its range expanded, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the reptile from endangered to threatened in 2007. Currently, South Florida and the Keys are home to about 2,000 crocodiles, and they are once again being sighted up and down the island chain. 

Between 2003 and 2017, the Dry Tortugas were home to a resident crocodile. Though it usually kept to itself, the solitary croc began to hang out around Fort Jefferson more frequently, and people wanted to take pictures. In 2017, it was captured and released in the Everglades. Today, they are regularly seen in Upper Keys’ canals and from the Overseas Highway to Cape Sable. 

The American crocodile is not all the way back, not by a long shot, but its populations are moving in the right direction, and with so many species losing the fight, it should be celebrated as a conservation success story.