Industrial infrastructure and wildlife conservation make for strange bedfellows — unless you’ve heard of the crocodile conservation happening at the Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station.
Turkey Point is among the U.S.’ 54 still functioning nuclear power plants, and its cooling canals have been an unlikely haven for the American crocodile, thanks to restoration efforts undertaken by the power plant’s operator, Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL), since the 1970s.
A Scaly Guest at Turkey Point
Turkey Point was built in 1975 along the southern shores of Florida’s Biscayne Bay, and its reactors were cooled with seawater drawn with the help of an artificial canal network.
A year after the plant began functioning, FPL workers discovered an expected visitor along the cooling canal system’s man-made berms: an American crocodile. The endangered species had fallen prey to habitat destruction and overhunting along the Florida coastline.
FPL’s Conservation Efforts
Rather than chase the lone croc away, FPL recognized how the plant’s 168 linear miles of cooling canals could provide a haven for these gray-green-colored coastal reptiles, and the FPL Crocodile Monitoring Program was born.
This initiative, spearheaded by biologist Mike Lloret, aimed to tag and track crocodile hatchlings along the plant’s saltwater and freshwater berms to increase the survival chances of young crocodiles.
A Thriving Population of Crocs
Since its inception in 1978, the FPL Program has tagged more than 8,000 hatchlings, and Turkey Point is today home to approximately 25% of the 2,000 American crocodiles.
In fact, the plant’s cooling canals continue to serve as one of the primary nesting grounds for the species; the 2022 nesting season saw a record-setting 33 crocodile nests and over 500 hatchlings being released into the wild.
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