DFW Urban Wildlife

DATLELINE – Summer 2024

There are a number of mysteries surrounding American Alligators living in and around Dallas/Fort Worth that have yet to be unraveled. We know that Alligators can be found in several different locations around the metroplex, but questions remain about exactly how many there are in our urban environment, how they got here, how they move from place to place, and how they survive.

Earlier this year I decided to take a closer look at these questions. My plan was to delve into what was known about DFW Alligators and consolidate my findings into a post on this website. I hoped the effort would provide some context that would facilitate further discourse on the matter.

With that objective in mind, I went to the internet in search of reported Alligator encounters from around Dallas/Fort Worth, and a short time later I had compiled a comprehensive list of what I considered to be reliable accounts. The resulting article went live on the internet in February 2023.

ARTICLE – Alligators in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex?

But, that article was only a preliminary effort. I fully expected that the accompanying data would be incomplete. I was sure there would be more work to be done. Still, I hoped this project would be the beginning of developing a a more comprehensive understanding about Alligators living in urban North Texas.

Sure enough, the article had only been published for a short time before the effort began paying dividends.

Dallas/Fort Worth is near the northwestern limits of the American Alligator’s natural range. But, there is good quality Alligator habitat to be found in many places throughout the metroplex–mostly located along the Trinity River and around our area reservoirs. A good number of these wetland areas create excellent ecosystems that can provide more than the required food, resources, and seclusion to support a healthy Alligator population.

While it has long been recognized that there were some number of American Alligators living in North Texas, the extent of their distribution throughout Dallas/Fort Worth has not been well understood or well documented. A complete accounting of the alligators living around our cities and communities has never been attempted, and their true status in the metroplex could only be guessed at.

One of the most pressing questions left unresolved by my research was whether Alligators were reproducing in the metroplex. This was perhaps the uncertainty that interested me the most, as a positive answer would demonstrate that Alligators are fully capable of of executing their entire lifecycle in urban North Texas. That in turn speaks to their long-term prospects in Dallas/Fort Worth going forward. So, with the goal of identifying good, solid evidence that Alligators were breeding in DFW proper, I posed the question in my article. In short order I had the news I was hoping for.

In mid-August of 2024, I was informed that the folks at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge (FWNCR) had recently posted on their Facebook page about the discovery of at least two active Alligator nests on the park’s property. The Facebook posts included excellent trail camera videos showing female Alligators protecting their nests from marauding Raccoons. Based on what is known about the breeding habits of Alligators, any eggs these nests contained would be expected to hatch soon–sometime in the next month or so. This was exciting news!

The Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge is well known as a hot spot for Alligators in the metroplex. Multiple reliable sighting reports have come from inside its boundaries over the years. At the same time, the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge is located very near the northwestern extent of the Alligator’s range in Texas–something that makes Alligator reproduction there all the more interesting.

Intrigued by this new evidence that Alligators were breeding in North Texas, I reached out to Jared Wood, PhD–the acting manager of the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge–in hopes of learning more. Jared quickly confirmed that Alligators were breeding at the nature center, and revealed that he and his team were conducting a research project focusing on the FWNCR Alligator population. He offered me a kind invitation to come out and see for myself what they were up to, and I quickly made plans for a trip out to the western fringes of Fort Worth for a visit.

The Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge is a true Dallas/Fort Worth area treasure. This urban nature preserve is located inside the Fort Worth city limits on the western portion of Tarrant County, just below Eagle Mountain Lake. The FWNCR covers 3,650 acres of mixed habitat, including forests, prairies, and wetlands. The park is owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth as a division of the City of Fort Worth Parks and Recreation Department, and is one of the largest city-owned nature centers in the United States.

FACEBOOK – Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge

WEBSITE – Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge

The Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge features over 20 miles of trails, and can facilitate a number of other outdoor activities, such as hiking, fishing, kayaking, canoeing, and picnicking. Most every species of North Texas wildlife can be found within its boundaries–including American Alligators! In addition, the Nature Center maintains a herd of Bison on the property, and has a managed Black-tailed Prairie Dog town as well.

I made the drive out to the FWNCR around noon on a bright autumn day in late September. There I met with Jared and members of his research team. After brief introductions, Jared began filling me in on the Alligator related work they are doing on property, and fielding a multitude of my questions.

The current Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) permitted research project at the Fort Worth Nature Center began in 2022, and efforts were stepped up shortly after Jared joined the nature center in the summer of 2023. According to Jared, the goal of the program is “to assess the population status of the native alligator population at the Nature Center and Refuge.” As part of this effort, the team conducts annual spotlight counts and nest surveys. In addition, Jared and his team are performing a mark-recapture study. “Each animal that we capture gets weighed, measured, and tagged. This morphometric data will allow us to determine the size demographics of the population. The ultimate goal is to use this data to develop an informed management plan for this urban alligator population.”

Jared’s background in Alligator research dates back to 2008, and includes ongoing participation in a similar research effort based in Oklahoma. Jared described the Oklahoma Alligator population as being very similar to that at the Fort Worth Nature Center, “in that they are both small, fringe populations that exist on the periphery of the American alligator’s northwestern range. The techniques and knowledge I learned in Oklahoma have been invaluable in developing the research at the FWNCR.”

Jared verified for me that two Alligator nests had been discovered on the grounds of the Fort Worth Nature Center this past summer. It was determined that together the two nests contained somewhere around 50 eggs. Jared’s team installed trail cameras on each site in order to monitor predation and watch for hatching events. Weekly in-person checks would be conducted until the success or failure of each nest had been determined–with at least one hatched egg to be considered a successful nest.

As it turns out, at the time of my visit, the eggs in one nest had recently hatched and members of Jared’s team were there to catch the action. This particular nest produced only three hatchlings. The juvenile Alligators were measured and marked, and after all of the pertinent data was recorded, the hatchlings were returned to the nest. Some time after my visit, the second nest produced six more hatchlings, for a total of nine new baby Alligators at the FWNCR this season.

Nine baby Alligators out of a possible 50 may not sound like a promising outcome, but Jared’s work in Oklahoma has shown that this is a typical outcome for Alligators living near the limits of their distribution. Mother Alligators are tasked with the near impossible job of protecting their eggs from marauding and resourceful predators like Raccoons and Opossums. The females cannot be present to guard the nest at all times and some number of egg losses are normal and to be expected.

The nine juvenile Alligators that did hatch will remain under the protection of their respective mothers during their first year of life, but the odds are still stacked decidedly against them. At only around 6 inches in length, the baby Alligators remain vulnerable to a number of predators–including fish, wading birds, birds of prey, otters, snakes, and even other Alligators.

In addition to this gauntlet of predators, the hatchling Alligators will also have to persevere through North Texas winter weather and any freezing temperatures that might result. Their odds of surviving cold weather are improved with the quality of the over-wintering den they will share with their mother. If the den includes space with an air pocket that the juveniles can reach, then the little Alligators will have a chance to survive periods when the water freezes over. If an air pocket is not available, there is a possibility that the juveniles will become trapped under the ice and not survive.

These are just some of the challenges Alligators face at the edge of their distribution range in Texas. A relatively low number of adult Alligators in North Texas means that there will only be a very limited number of hatchlings produced each season. Meanwhile, predators and cold winter weather make it very difficult for hatchling Alligators to survive their first year. All of these factors work to restrict the number of Alligators in North Texas, keeping the population at a relatively steady state.

Jared and his team will continue to monitor the baby Alligators over the winter months. “We will locate the brood each week until we find their denning site. Once we identify an active den, we set up a game camera to monitor it. This allows us to observe the mother’s and her brood’s behaviors and document predation. This technique has been very successful in documenting overwinter survival.”

Fortunately, juvenile Alligators grow quickly–adding a foot or so in length each year for the first six years of their life. Once they grow to around 12 inches long things begins to change in favor of the young gators. When the juvenile reach this size, they become more difficult for their usual predators to handle and their chances for survival improve.

The Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge Alligator research project is expected to complete in few years, at which time the findings will be published. Through this work much will be learned about the Alligators living in and around the nature center. The insight gained will contribute greatly to the development of a more complete understanding of the ways Alligators manage the unique survival challenges posed by the urban environment in North Texas.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: IT IS ILLEGAL TO INTENTIONALLY FEED FREE RANGING ALLIGATORS IN TEXAS. HUNTING ALLLIGATORS IS LEGAL IN TEXAS BUT THEY ARE PROTECTED BY STRICT REGULATIONS. HUNTING IS NOT PERMITTED IN THE FORT WORTH NATURE CENTER AND REFUGE. ALL RESEARCH DESCRIBED IN THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN APPROVED BY TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMRNT AND CONDUCTED UNDER APPROPRIATE PERMITTING. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE ALLIGATORS AT THE FORT WORTH NATURE CENTER.

LINK – TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT ALLIGATOR REGULATIONS PUBLICATION

LINK – TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT GENERAL ALLIGATOR INFORMATION