Rare American crocodile caught in Florida drainpipe, police say. It was 9 feet long
The American crocodile is rare and mostly found in Florida’s Everglades, but that didn’t stop one from showing up 230 miles north in a Brevard County man’s driveway.
It happened Thursday, May 18, in Satellite Beach — 65 miles southeast of Orlando, along Florida’s Space Coast — and the croc was 9 feet long, according to the Satellite Beach Police Department.
“Earlier today we received a call from a resident about a ‘crocodile’ that mysteriously appeared in his driveway,” police said in a Facebook post.
“Our patrol units arrived just as the endangered American Crocodile took refuge in the culvert drainpipe.”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission sent a licensed trapper to catch and safely relocate the crocodile, which was estimated to be about 10 years old.
It was the second time this month a crocodile sighting had been reported in Brevard County, and FWC says both cases involved the same reptile.
The other sighting, on May 9, was at the Sixth Avenue River Access in Melbourne Beach, about 8 miles south of Satellite Beach.
Melbourne police allowed it to remain at large, and noted it was one of 12 crocodiles fitted with an FWC telemetry unit to track its movements. “They picked him because he’s one of the northernmost American crocodiles, and they want to follow where he goes in the winter,” police said.
FWC officials say the tracking collar fell off when the crocodile was being trapped in Satellite Beach, so its whereabouts can no longer be traced.
Brevard County is considered the northernmost range of the American crocodile, which prefers warmer temperatures to the south.
Two crocodile sightings were reported in the region late last year: One in Brevard County and one 25 miles south in Indian River County, McClatchy News reported. In the latter case, Tiara Alessandra Weethee of Sebastian, shared video of the crocodile playing in the surf at Sebastian Inlet.
It’s unclear if those sightings involved the same crocodile.
An estimated 2,000 adult crocodiles live “in brackish or saltwater areas” along the Florida coast, with most of them in the southern part of the state, FWC reports.
They can be differentiated from alligators by more narrow snouts, greenish color and lower-jaw teeth that remain exposed, even when the mouth is shut, experts say.
Males “can reach about 20 feet in length but rarely exceed 14 feet in the wild,” according to the National Park Service.
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