We saw an article this morning about the Crocodile named Cleatus at the Dry Tortugas being relocated to the Everglades. Awwwwwww...... He was quite the icon having been at the Dry Tortugas for over 10 years. We'll forever remember Cleatus and the warning signs on the beach.
See our post on Dry Tortugas National Park and Key West
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| Thats a handful!! |
On Sunday, after getting too chummy with visitors bearing food, park staff and state wildlife officials lassoed the threatened American croc, nicknamed Cleatus, and pulled it from the moat where it frequently hunkered under a bridge leading to Fort Jefferson. They taped its mouth shut and loaded it into a waiting sea plane while a crowd of tourists watched. Monday morning, after recovering from a tranquilizer, the croc was released in Everglades National Park in West Lake, just off the Main Park Road.
“It wasn’t a rash decision,” said park manager Glenn Simpson. “There were two considerations we held highest and that’s visitor safety and the safety of the crocodile and it’s general health.”
The male croc first appeared in 2003, the first ever documented near the 19th century fort, puzzling park rangers and scientists baffled by its appearance some 70 miles west of Key West. In 2008, they captured it and confirmed through DNA testing that the croc was related to American crocs in the Everglades. It’s still not clear how it wound up so far from family.
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