It has been a tough nine months for Louisiana's alligators, what with two major hurricanes wreaking havoc on their swampy habitat, then scant rainfall to dilute the saltwater that gushed inland.
GRAND CHENIER, Louisiana — It has been a tough nine months for Louisiana's alligators, what with two major hurricanes wreaking havoc on their swampy habitat, then scant rainfall to dilute the saltwater that gushed inland.
But early indications are the population held up quite well after the storms that ravaged the Gulf Coast in August and September, causing more than $100 billion of damage.
Hurricanes Rita and Katrina killed an unknown, but likely small, number of the estimated 1.5 million alligators along the state's coastal area when they made landfall, and the storm surges pushed some northward, said Ruth Elsey, a biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
"We do know that alligators don't tolerate full-strength saltwater particularly well. They more prefer fresh water and intermediate brackish marshes and stuff like that. Now the problem is we had drought on top of the storms, and some of the alligators, we think, got displaced a little bit," Elsey said at the the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in southwest Louisiana.
"Luckily, history has shown us when we've had hurricanes before that alligators are very resilient and they bounce right back."
Damage to the wetlands due to saltwater, erosion and the shifting of mud and debris mean fewer places for alligators to live and hunt for food, which stresses the reptiles, she said. Alligators usually eat nutria, waterfowl and crawfish.
Apart from being an important part of the ecosystem, the alligator symbolizes much of southern Louisiana, known for its swampland and Cajun culture. The reptile is also a key part of the state's the economy. In 2004, the value of alligator hides and meat sold was $36 million.
Hurricane Rita slammed into southwest Louisiana on Sept. 24 -- less than one month after Katrina devastated much of the southeastern part of the state -- and the Rockefeller Refuge took a near-direct hit from the winds and 15-foot storm surge.
The refuge's raised buildings on the south side of Highway 82 along the coast are among a handful of structures in the region that survived.
Behind them are small ponds, where five young alligators recently escaped the afternoon heat by submerging all but their heads in muddy, greenish water.
Her team is scheduled to conduct their annual coastal nesting surveys in June and July. That will help determine what the storms' impact was on the alligators.
One saving grace for the population was Louisiana's egg ranching program, where landowners sell alligator eggs to commercial alligator farmers, keeping them and the hatchlings safe from flooding or predators like raccoons.
In 2005, before Rita and Katrina, a record 507,000 eggs were collected, up from an average of about 350,000.
"I think we averted a lot of the natural mortality that we would have seen from the storms because of our ranching program," Elsey said.
Source: Reuters
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