That road-killed alligator — a 6-footer, and almost certainly a young male — was evidence of two points concerning the native reptiles: the annual alligator mating season is in full swing, increasing the potential of human/alligator encounters, and Texas’ alligator population is healthy, growing and expanding its range. There's a good chance you're planning some getaway time before summer comes to a close.
Over the past decades, the reptiles have reclaimed much of the native range from which they’d been extirpated. The river flows southward through parts of the Texas State University campus and downtown San Marcos.
And many of those gators come from areas of the state many would not associate with large gator populations. “The phones start ringing off the hook — people calling to report they saw an alligator in their yard, a ditch, a pond or crossing a road, and wanting someone to do something about it,” said Cooper, Port Arthur-based alligator program leader for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The 22 Texas counties with the highest concentrations of alligators (so-called core alligator counties in southeast Texas and along the upper … Most alligators shy away from any interaction with humans, especially those encountered in the reptile’s native habitat. Henderson County in northeast Texas, Kleberg and Cameron counties in South Texas and even Maverick County on the Rio Grande near Del Rio have produced some of the largest gators during the spring season. Also, alligators and crocodiles are different in color; while alligators are black, crocodiles are a brown or green color. So is our available time to enjoy warm weather and the kids being free from school.
Alligators have been recently documented in the Guadalupe River above Canyon Reservoir, the upper Brazos River system and even farther west, in areas where the reptiles haven’t been seen in a century, if ever. ALAMOSA, Colo. — Alligators: they can get pretty big and for some they’re pretty darn scary. While most people do their best to avoid alligators, some seek them out. There are some key differences between crocodiles and alligators. Those phones are ringing, now, Cooper said, with Houston-area TP&W offices getting “10-15 calls a day, and sometimes a lot more,” from worried folks who have spotted one of the tens of thousands of gators crawling across the landscape in search of a new home territory, a mate or both.
“Just be patient. This annual scramble of young gators looking to settle in new, unoccupied habitat is what expands the reptiles’ range and finds them in suburban yards, canals, ditches, stock tanks, reservoirs and in the path of oncoming vehicle traffic. Texas’ thriving, expanding alligator population supports a two-part alligator hunting season, with one of those seasons set during spring. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department says alligators are unlikely to …
Since 1984, Texas has held an annual alligator hunting season each September in counties holding the highest gator populations. In the 22 so-called core counties, alligator harvest is regulated through issuance of tags to landowners.
And it’s what triggers the flood of calls to TP&W offices from folks who spot one of these roving reptiles, almost always subadult gators measuring 4-6 feet. Only Louisiana and Florida hold more wild alligators than Texas.
That range expansion is a function of what Texans are seeing this month.
“Most of the nuisance alligator calls are young gators, males and some females, just trying to find a safe territory or looking for a mate,” Cooper said. The season, which runs April 1-June 30, allows a person holding a Texas hunting license and hunting on private property to take one alligator per license year, with strict requirements on reporting the take and obtaining a federally required tag from TP&W. I lived in San Marcos for 26 years and the river is the best place to go in the summertime (which is almost all year round). They’ll almost always move on.” The exception is a roaming gator that shows aggressiveness.