An obstacle for drivers: gators on the move
Perhaps the alligator was looking for a little love or a midnight snack when it crossed the road, but it did not make it to the other side.
Instead, the hulking creature became a formidable obstacle for a driver who plowed into the gator early Thursday while barreling east on a dark stretch of a rural Montgomery County highway. Scaly armor was no match for a speeding hunk of steel. When the rubber hit the reptile, the gator met his maker.
Peak alligator breeding season and last week’s bout of heavy rain mean the region’s healthy population of gators is on the move, popping up in unusual places such as Texas 99 and east Harris County’s Fred Hartman Bridge.
“They migrate from pond to pond looking for food and looking for love,” said Tim Pylate, executive director of the Armand Bayou Nature Center.
It’s difficult to track the gator population size with any accuracy, Pylate said, but he typically spots a dozen gators on short
weekend pontoon trips in the bayou. After battling back from near extinction, the state’s population of alligators may number between 250,000 and 500,000, according to a 2016 estimate from Texas Master Naturalist.
The number of alligators and reports of alligator sightings in Montgomery County have certainly grown in the past two decades, said Brannon Meinkowsky, one of the county’s game wardens. Alligator encounters have become more frequent as the county’s human population grows and developments expand.
“Areas that used to be in the middle of the woods are now parks and subdivisions,” Meinkowsky said. “So I think the numbers have increased, but also their wooded areas or secluded areas have decreased.”
This is not the first time an alligator has been run over in Montgomery County, Meinkowsky said, but it’s far more common for drivers to strike deer darting across the highway. In general, drivers should keep in mind that wildlife may cross roads in rural areas, he said.
“It’s just kind of unique,” he said about Thursday’s alligator incident. “It’s not usually the alligators that are on the roadway.”
The American alligator was once on the verge of extinction and was protected as an endangered species until 1987, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. But the population has bounced back enough that there is an open season for licensed alligator hunting in Texas from April 1 to June 30.
In Montgomery County, there were five alligators tagged by hunters in 2016, 19 in 2017, 11 in 2018, five in 2019 and nine in 2020, Meinkowsky said.
Gators live in swamps, rivers, bayous and marshes across the South, including the eastern third of Texas, according to the parks department. Nearly black in color, the American alligator has prominent eyes and nostrils, course scales and a long head with visible upper teeth. The body length of an adult gator typically ranges from 6 to 14 feet.
March through May is the peak breeding and nesting season when gators tend to be more transient and active after emerging from months of brumation, a period of dormancy when temperatures drop. Heavy rainfall or weather events such as the storm that blew through Southeast Texas last week may also prompt gators to move.
“It’s not uncommon for them to be traveling this time of year,” Meinkowsky said.
Another reason for movement is predation. Juveniles may be forced to flee one pond for another if older male alligators attempt to eat them, Pylate said.
Alligators are shy by nature and keep to themselves when left alone, the parks department said. The majority of alligators are not nuisances to the human communities they live alongside. Few gators are known to kill livestock or pets.
There is a potential risk of danger when alligators end up in environments where they do not belong, such as backyards or roadways, but they are often “more scared of people than people are of them,” Meinkowsky said.
Alligators are millions of years old, Pylate said, and the recent alligator spottings in human environments are no reason to think the population is getting out of hand.
“We moved into their territory,” Pylate said. “We’re building homes and shopping malls in their territory. … They are practically living dinosaurs.”