Why Florida’s Nuclear Plant is Home to America’s Wild Crocodiles

Introduction: A Rare Predator in a Surprising Place

There's only one place in the United States where you can find wild native crocodiles: Florida. It's also the only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators live side by side. But some of the strangest surprises lie in one of Florida's most unexpected locations. This isn't a wild swamp or a hidden river. It's a vast manmade maze of water stretching for miles in the shadow of a nuclear power plant.

Why do crocodiles gather in this unexpected place, and how has the landscape shaped by splitting the atom become home to one of America's rarest predators?

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The American Crocodile

South Florida, the land of sun-soaked beaches, palm line streets, swanky south beach hotels, and crocodiles. American crocodiles to be exact. Cousins of the Nile crocodile, these aren't invasive species like so many of Florida's weird reptiles. They are native and rare.

While they might look similar to their more common neighbor, the alligator, there are some key differences. Crocs tend to be longer, they have narrower snouts with more visible teeth, and they have the strongest bite in the animal kingdom.

Fossil evidence tells us that crocodilians have been around for over 80 million years, dating back to the time of the dinosaurs. Their lineage remains largely unchanged, which is a testament to their resilience at its peak.

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Decline and an Unlikely Sanctuary

At its peak, South Florida's crocodile population may have numbered 3,000 or more, but by the mid-1970s, those numbers had plummeted to just a few hundred. But some of those elusive reptiles found an unlikely sanctuary, right here at Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant just south of Miami.

Turkey Point was built in the 1960s to generate electricity for South Florida's booming population. Energy from this plant powers nearly 1 million homes. But what makes Turkey Point unique isn't just the size or location, it's what surrounds it.

One of the misconceptions that we have is that there's some radioactivity to the cooling canals, and really, that's not the case. The crocodiles here are living in the brackish water that is just cycling through the plant, but not actually touching any of the radioactive equipment.

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The Cooling Canal Ecosystem

The canal system is massive. It's 168 linear miles of cooling canals. You can actually see it from space. The water passes through the nuclear plant to remove excess heat. The water then cools as it travels through the canals. So it works in the same way as the radiator. Once the cooling water has exited the plant, it takes about 48 hours for it to cycle back through again.

At first glance, this just sounds like an industrial solution to an ordinary engineering problem, but over the years, these canals have become something else entirely.

Both of our nuclear units went into operation in the early 1970s, and then in 1978, while doing some work on site, we found a crocodile nest. Crocodiles were in a lot of trouble. We're talking about a population of about 150 to 300 animals in the '60s and '70s. Once it was created and we recognized that we did have a crocodile nest here, it was really there that we started to learn more about the crocodiles that we had here on site.

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Why Turkey Point Works for Crocodiles

• The cooling canal system is an ecosystem in and of itself, and so it has the prey that the crocodiles need to eat.
• There are elevated berms that are used for nesting.
• No public access means crocodiles can live freely without human encroachment.

The presence of crocodiles in these waters isn't just some strange nature sideshow. They play a critical role in this ecosystem. Crocodiles are at the top of the food chain. Without them, the rest of the food chain falls apart. They're the cleanup crew. They keep other populations in check.

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Crocodile Research and Conservation

Today, Turkey Point is South Florida's most concentrated nesting area for American crocodiles. Each year, scientists monitor hundreds of crocodiles here in the canals, tracking their growth, health, and nesting behavior. It's part science, part detective work, sometimes part adventure.

Scientists track nesting, hatchling survival, and growth rates. Healthy hatchlings mean a healthy population. Over the years, researchers have tagged over 10,000 individuals, creating one of the most comprehensive data sets for any reptile species in the world.

Since the crocodile program began in the 1970s, the population in South Florida has grown from a few hundred individuals to more than 2,000. It's a remarkable turnaround.

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Conclusion: A Conservation Success Story

Turkey Point is a conservation success story, a testament to the surprising ways that industry and nature can coexist. The American crocodile population was actually downlisted from endangered to threatened in 2007. Places like Turkey Point remind us that progress doesn't just have to come at nature's expense. It can come with it. It just takes a little energy to get things started.