By David Fleshler Sun Sentinel

The American crocodile, once among the most imperiled animals in the United States, has rebounded so robustly that the federal government announced plans Thursday to cease classifying it as endangered.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed upgrading the crocodile's status from endangered to threatened, a change that would recognize the crocodile's improved prospects while leaving its legal protection intact.

Once reduced to a last stronghold in northeastern Florida Bay, the crocodile has reclaimed some of its old territory, extending its range up both coasts of Florida. A crocodile recently showed up in a lake at the University of Miami's campus in Coral Gables. Occasional reports of crocodiles come from Fort Lauderdale and the West Lake section of Hollywood. The number of crocodiles in South Florida rose to as many as 1,000 from a low point in the 1970s of fewer than 300.

"The population as a whole appears to be doing better," said Britta Muiznieks, Upper Keys recovery biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We no longer believe the species is in imminent danger of extinction."

By the early 1970s, before the crocodile came under federal protection, it was dying out. Condominiums and hotels covered most of its old habitat along the coasts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties. In its last stronghold in northern Florida Bay, people shot crocodiles "for sport" from passing boats, a practice that accounted for about half of human-caused crocodile deaths in the early 1970s, according to research cited by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

By the time the crocodile went on the endangered species list in 1976, the population had declined to between 200 and 300, with just 10 to 20 breeding females.

Biologists attribute the crocodile's resurgence to a federal recovery effort, environmental restoration work at Everglades National Park, and the unintentional construction of excellent crocodile habitat in an illegal dredging operation in Key Largo and in the cooling canals of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant.

"Unwittingly at the time, actions taken for entirely different purposes created crocodile habitat," said Frank Mazzotti, wildlife biologist at the University of Florida, who has done much of the research on the American crocodile.

But the federal protection led to an intense recovery effort. The endangered-species designation meant it was a felony to shoot one. The last known shooting took place in 1991.

The federal government acquired 5,000 acres of land for the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge, encompassing miles of illegally dredged canals that turned out to be superb crocodile habitat. Everglades National Park plugged canals, allowing crocodiles to nest on the berms.

And Turkey Point's cooling canals, built in 1974, began attracting crocodiles. Managed by Florida Power & Light to enhance habitat for crocodiles, the canals now support the second-largest nesting population in the United States.

Shy and elusive, inhabiting remote mangrove swamps and creeks in Key Largo and the southern tip of mainland Florida, the crocodile crawls into public view far less frequently than its more numerous cousin, the alligator. But its resurgence raises the possibility of more encounters between crocodiles and people.

While there have been no documented attacks by American crocodiles on human beings in the United States, the same species has occasionally attacked and killed people in other countries.

In Costa Rica and Mexico, where the few attacks took place, American crocodiles grow much larger than their counterparts in the United States, Mazzotti said. And as a whole, he said American crocodiles are much less aggressive than alligators. They could pose a threat to pets, he said, but probably not to people.

Still, he urged federal officials to prepare an education campaign to teach people to stay away from crocodiles, to not panic at the sight of them and to avoid feeding them to prevent them from losing their fear of people.

Mazzotti said there's little risk of an attack on people. But he expressed concern about how people will react to the arrival of large, toothy reptiles near their homes.

"I'm not sure humans in Florida are ready for the recovery of the American crocodile," he said. "It certainly is one of the least-aggressive species. Far from a fearful thing, it's a natural history wonder and a sign that the Endangered Species Act does work."

David Fleshler can be reached at dfleshler@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4535.

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