Crocodile Lake Nationwide Wildlife Refuge

The Crocodile Lake Nationwide Wildlife Refuge is positioned in north Key Largo alongside the lesser traveled path to the Keys on Card Sound Street. This 6,686 acre land refuge (plus 650 acres of open water) opened in 1980 below the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Crocodile Lake Nationwide Wildlife Refuge was purported to be a residential housing improvement; nonetheless, it grew to become a vital nesting space for the remaining 200 American Crocodiles that had been placed on the Endangered Species listing in 1975. Numbering some 1,400 robust in 2007, the federal government ‘down listed’ the American Crocodile from Endangered to Threatened. Along with being one among solely three breeding populations in America, the refuge is house to many various kinds of habitats together with the tropical hardwood hammocks, mangrove forests and a salt marsh. The American crocodiles, as soon as ranging in nice numbers, had been hunted for exporting of its disguise and pores and skin. Oh yeah, the capturing and searching of the crocodile remains to be forbidden.

This signal for Crocodile Lake may be discovered on Card Sound Street 11.5 miles heading east in the direction of Key Largo. The start of Card Sound Street is at Mile Marker 126.7 on US-1 south. Use your automobile’s odometer for the reason that mile marker signage on this portion of Card Sound Street is horrible at greatest and completely non-existent somewhere else! Oh yeah, SORRY to say that that is NOT a public park, it’s a wildlife refuge closed to the general public however may be seen by pulling over at any of a lot of bridges and clearings alongside its 13 mile width.