"Old Gruesome,” as residents of a Florida Keys neighborhood affectionately call an American crocodile who’s lived in their canal for years, decided to explore the area outside her normal environs earlier this month.
The large croc usually hangs out in the canals of the Venetian Shores neighborhood next to the Coast Guard station in Islamorada, said resident Jim Doran.
But on May 5, she wandered outside the area beyond a fence, and state wildlife officers decided they should wrangle her and return her home. With the help of Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies, they quickly captured her and returned her to the water, Doran, who watched and photographed the operation, said.
The FWC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the relocation.
Although they may look fearsome to many people, American crocodiles are pretty shy and less aggressive than alligators. South Florida and the Keys is the northernmost tip of their habitat range.
And, they were almost completely wiped out.
Their numbers dwindled down to the hundreds in the 1970s, but due to conservation efforts, the crocodile population in South Florida is believed to be well above 2,000 reptiles, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
As much as some may recoil at the increasingly more common site of a large croc floating in a canal or sunning itself on a boat ramp, the FWC’s official position is they are “reestablishing themselves in their historic range.”
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies and a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer wrangle an American crocodile that wandered beyond the Florida Keys where she usually lives, Friday, May 5, 2023.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies and a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer wrangle an American crocodile that wandered beyond the Florida Keys where she usually lives, Friday, May 5, 2023. Jim Doran
So, other than the occasional relocation, wildlife officials leave them alone.
To residents like Doran, who like seeing Old Gruesome around, that’s just fine.
“She’s very docile. Some of the yankees are afraid of her, but she doesn’t bother anybody,” he said.
