A crocodile was caught lounging in a Florida Keys backyard pool. See what happened next
.jpg "An American crocodile lounges in a pool in Key Largo Friday morning, Jan. 31, 2025.")
A Florida Keys homeowner woke up Friday morning to find a crocodile lounging in her swimming pool, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
The reptile was lying on one of the pool’s chairs inside the Pirate’s Cove subdivision in Key Largo, according to photos and a video released by the sheriff’s office. The incident happened shortly before 7 a.m.
In the video, a deputy with a shovel and a man with a pool cleaning pole nudge the croc toward the back entrance of the fence and into a nearby canal.
As the large animal makes its way out of the yard, it bumps into a small tree, prompting a woman to yell at it, “Hey, watch the rose bushes!”
“There were no injuries or major property damage reported,” Adam Linhardt, sheriff’s office spokesman, said in an email.
The reptile is an American crocodile, a species almost wiped out into extinction in South Florida, which is its native habitat.
Between 1930 and 1960, they were hunted for their prized hides, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
They are now protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, which has led to a rebounding population. While the population of American crocs dwindled to the hundreds in the 1970s, their numbers are now believed to be well over 2,000 reptiles, according to state fish and wildlife biologists.
This means that finding one in your swimming pool or catching rays on your dock or sunning itself on a boat ramp is becoming increasingly common in the Keys and elsewhere in South Florida.
Still, those numbers are nowhere near those of their relatives, the alligator, which has a stable population of at least 1.3 million in all of Florida’s 67 counties.
Although they may look fearsome to many people, American crocodiles are pretty shy and less aggressive than alligators. And reported crocodile attacks on humans are rare in Florida.
In March 2023, a man swimming in an Everglades National Park marina was bitten on the leg by a crocodile.
Authorities said a man was bitten on a shoulder after jumping into a Coral Gable canal in 2014 — an incident reported then as the first confirmed crocodile attack on a human in Florida.
There have been instances where crocs have killed pets in the Florida Keys and other parts of South Florida.
Nevertheless, while nuisance gators are often killed by state-contracted trappers, wildlife police typically relocate crocodiles that become problems in residential areas.
This story was originally published January 31, 2025 at 11:07 AM.
