A fairly large and lazy American crocodile “refused to budge” and caused a Naval airfield to shut down earlier this week.
On Monday, the Naval Air Station (NAS) in Key West posted a photo to social media of a large croc sprawled out on a runway, while a jet takes off in the background.
“Sunning Croc and Super Hornet,” read the Facebook caption. “This airfield resident was soaking up some sun on one of our runways recently and didn’t want to budge. Wildlife Biologist Rosa Gonzales had to call in reinforcement from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation to move the stubborn American crocodile outside the fence line. After a while, crocodile!”
According to the Miami Herald, the airbase has about six or seven crocodiles living on the grounds and the pilots just have to get used to living with the apex predators. This one was estimated to be about 7-feet long, and weigh roughly 110-pounds.
Florida is actually the only place where alligators and crocodiles coexist in the wild, and there are currently about 2,000 in the Sunshine State, says the FWC.
American crocodiles, which can be found from the Keys all the way as far north as Tampa Bay, were added to the federally endangered species list back in 1975, and are currently classified as “threatened” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This story originally appeared at Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
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