Alligators and Cold Weather

KEDM Public Radio | By Kelby Ouchley

Published January 8, 2019 at 2:13 PM EST

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K. Ouchley

Alligators did not welcome the recent spate of cold weather. The least-known aspect of alligator life history involves their behavior during the winter, especially in inland swamp habitat. In general, they retreat to dens in cold weather; but they do not hibernate. Instead, they brumate, a condition when the core temperature and other physiological processes decrease, but not to the extent that occurs in true hibernation.

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Kelby Ouchley

Kelby was a biologist and manager of National Wildlife Refuges for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 30 years. He has worked with alligators in gulf coast marshes and Canada geese on Hudson Bay tundra. His most recent project was working with his brother Keith of the Louisiana Nature Conservancy on the largest floodplain restoration project in the Mississippi River Basin at the Mollicy Unit of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, reconnecting twenty-five square miles of former floodplain forest back to the Ouachita River.

See stories by Kelby Ouchley