Nuclear crocodiles are real in Florida.
No, they don’t glow in the dark, but they do spend their lives in the canals outside a nuclear power plant.
In Homestead, at Florida Power & Light’s (FPL) Turkey Point nuclear power plant, crocodiles – that’s right, not alligators – hatch and live in the canals that cool the steam from the plant and in the ponds created for reptiles.
“Back in 1978, a worker found an egg and didn’t know what it was and brought it to biologist,” said Bill Orlove, senior manager, generation communications, marketing and communications, NextEra Energy , which owns the Florida energy company. “And for the last 40 years, we maintain a crocodile monitoring program to ensure that we are able and aim to be good stewards of the environment.”
At the time of the first egg discovery at Turkey Point, the American crocodile was on the Endangered Species list of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service . With the help of FPL, the Florida population has recovered and is now classified as threatened by the federal service and Florida’s Endangered and Threatened Species Rule .