Everglades National Park - Alligators
As the small holes dry out, alligators lumber across the limestone-whitened landscape looking for larger ones, where the water has not yet evaporated. To observe one of these sluggish reptiles trudging through the saw grass, the short legs thrusting the elongated body off the ground and only the tip of the tail dragging behind, is to enter the ancient time when mighty reptiles ruled the land. Kin of the dinosaurs, alligators have changed little in the last 60 million years: the animals are still mostly bone and muscle bone and muscle, and their brains make up less than 1 percent of their total weight.
The largest reptiles in North America, male alligators grow to 16 feet or longer; females, to 8 or 9. Together they fill the night with mating roars that shake the swamp with thunder. After they finish their noisy courting, a pair may bask languidly in the sun for days before mating. The female takes the leading role. When ready, she swims to the male, and they float together, sometimes with heads touching. Tenderly, the male may stroke her back with his forelimb before the two submerge and mate. Afterward, the male departs, and the female transforms into a busy mother to be.
The female alligator builds a large nest on an elevated riverbank, stacking vegetation high enough to not be flooded by summer's rising waters. The decaying vegetation generates warm, stable temperatures that will help to incubate the eggs. In the middle of the nest she lays from 20 to 60 oval, leathery eggs, each three inches long. Most nests are finished by mid-June; the eggs hatch about two months later, usually just before the river overflows. Sometimes, though, all the mother's precautions in building her nest high above the river are not enough to protect her unborn young; the nest is flooded and the eggs destroyed. But if it is an average year, the young alligators, sporting bright black and yellow stripes on their beaded hides, agilely crawl over each other to the water, where they hunt crayfish, insects, snakes, and frogs. Though the mother makes no effort to feed her charges, she does offer protection. When a predator threatens to attack, the young alligators grunt in alarm, and the mother rushes forward hissing, her mouth side open -- pink, cavernous, and studded with teeth. More than one careless raccoon has perished in a bone-shattering crunch. Even so, many baby alligators fall victim to the beak of the great blue heron, the otter's sharp incisors, and even the bullfrog's grasp.
Like all life in the Everglades, baby alligators are dependent of the unseen hand of the engineer. For a long time, the river was viewed as a wasteland to be drained and converted to farms, its water diverted to nourish nearby crops and cities. Eventually, the pioneers' zeal was tempered, and the Everglades was spared from further draining. Since the 1920's, however, a network of canals, pumps, and sluice gates built around the river of grass has artificially regulated its flow, sending water to the park only after urban and agricultural needs have been met. In dry years, the Everglades has been allowed to parch and burn; during wet periods, it became a floodway. Nature took thousands of years to develop the rhythms that control life in the Everglades. Whether government authorities and two Indian tribes, working together, can restore the natural water flow into the park remains to be seen.