What Shapes It
Up to 14 ft
Males can reach exceptional length
Wetland engineer
Alligator holes are powerful carbon storage systems
Up to 50 years
Long-lived and slowly shaped by time
CITES Appendix II
Trade is internationally regulated and traceable
Rescued from Extinction
A century of overhunting, combined with habitat and pesticide pollution, brought the Alligator dangerously close to extinction. The American Alligator was placed on the endangered species list in 1967. The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries worked with land owners who own most of the coastal wetlands, to protect these vital habitats. The American Alligator is a foundational species in the everglades that helps the entire ecosystem prosper.
The Alligator and Our Climate
This is where the story of the wild American alligator converges most powerfully with the crisis of our time. Wetlands filter pollutants from water, reduce flooding, and store carbon, helping fight climate change. They provide habitat for countless species, many of which are found nowhere else. The wetlands that the alligator engineers and maintains - the cypress swamps of Louisiana and Florida, the Everglades, the marshes and river systems of the American Southeast - are among the most powerful carbon storage systems on Earth. Wetland soils lock carbon away from the atmosphere at a rate that rivals any forest on the planet.
This means the wild alligator is not only a conservation success story. It is aclimate story. Every alligator hole dug in a Louisiana cypress swamp is a smallact of carbon sequestration. Every thriving wetland is a buffer against the flooding, the drought, and the temperature extremes that define the crisis the Earth is moving through.
Ancient Alligator Totem
Shaped by time. The Alligator is seen as a guardian of ancient knowledge. Patience. The Alligator can remain motionless for days. The person who carries the Alligator totem, learns to hold in stillness and move only when the moment is exactly right. Protection. The Alligators armour carries a protective frequency that has been proven against the harshest forces the world can bring to bear.
Ancient Armour
This suit of armour, in Room 21 in the British Museum, has been radio carbon dated to the third century A.D. It was discovered in Manfalut, Egypt preserved in a grotto. The history of exotic leather is confirmed. Crocodile garments stretch back 5,000 years across Egypt, the Americans, Africa, and Asia. In ancient culture, there was no separation between the crocodile hide, the wearer, and its metaphysical power. In Egypt, the crocodile was seen as sacred and divine, and worshiped as a God.
Crocodile skins were worn by priests, as a mechanism of transformation, and Pharaohs, that sought the crocodile Gods ferocity and endurance. The first female Pharaoh adopted Sobekneferu as her coronation name. After defeating Mark Antony at Actium in 31 B.C, and Cleopatra's death in 30 B.C, Octavian made Egypt a Roman Provence. Roman garrisons participated in crocodile cults. The crocodile skin was coveted as wearable power.
image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
Food First - The Circle Completes
The principle is the same as every pastoral tradition that has proceeded it. The meat feeds families, the hides becomes leather, the living alligator engineers the wetlands that feed, filter, and protect the communities around it. The community receives all of it with gratitude and manages the population with the precision of those who understand that their own survival depends on the animal. Food first, no waste, the circle complete.
A Conservation and Climate Success Story
