April 7, 1997

Everglades gators too skinny, at risk

MIAMI (AP) -- While their cousins thrive throughout Florida, alligators in
the Everglades are so skinny that biologists are worried about their future.

Gators there are living on a diet of mostly salamanders, snakes and snails -- far from the fare the reptiles need to thrive.

The Everglades gators are taking 20 years to reach reproductive size, and are maxing out at 200 pounds or less.

Their fatter, healthier kin just 70 miles to the north on Lake Okeechobee eat raccoons and other meaty mammals, and in many cases can grow to triple the weight of the Everglades gators.

Biologists are trying to figure out what is going on.

The experts say it could be extreme water fluctuations caused by the massive flood control system built over the past half-century that drained half the original Everglades and left the rest sometimes too dry, other times too wet.

It might also have something to do with mercury pollution.

Or it could be something much more mundane: South Florida might just be too hot for the cold-blooded beasts.

Brady Barr, a University of Miami doctoral student is trying to find the answers.

For the past several years, he has pumped the stomachs of more than 1,000 Everglades alligators to find out what they're eating, and why they're so thin.

His project for the next few months is to thaw out and analyze 150 bags containing the frozen contents of alligator stomachs.

"We're trying to figure out what's wrong with them," Barr says. "Maybe this is just such a harsh environment for them, and they use all their energy trying to stay warm, or to get rid of heat."

For those who think of alligators as the great green hunters of the swamps, ready to snap up
any deer or hog that crosses their path, Barr has news.

"These alligators are living mostly on snakes and snails," he said. "Alligators throughout the state are doing well. But most people don't know that alligators are doing very poorly in the Everglades. They're having a lot of problems."

The state Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission estimates more than one million alligators live in the Florida wilds.

They thrive in places like Lake Okeechobee, where they snack on everything from tasty bass to bobcats.

The gator population in central and northern Florida is robust, too.

That's where the record-sized gators come from, like the all-time largest alligator ever captured in the state. It was just over 14 feet long, topped 600 pounds, and was snagged in the Panhandle several years ago.

"I think it's because their food source is more abundant outside of South Florida," said Pam Walker of the Game Commission's alligator management office in Tallahassee, explaining the great girth of her local gators.

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