American Alligator Mortality's Boletim

Vehicle collision is highest possible cause of death among deceased American Alligator observations on iNaturalist

© Photographer: gators2017 | iNat Observation: 6438129

On November 19, 2020, the author finished a review of over 19,000 American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) observations uploaded to iNaturalist between April 5, 2009 and November 19, 2020. While some may have been missed, observations which depicted a deceased specimen were marked as “dead” in the annotations section and thereby automatically added to the iNat Alligator Mortality collections project.

A review of the 93 deceased alligator observations posted on iNaturalist to date showed the majority (47.3%) were of specimens on or near a roadway, indicating vehicle collision as the possible cause of death. A breakdown is as follows:

• 47.3% - on/near roadway (44 observations)
• 27.9% - floating in water, unknown cause (26 observations)
• 11.8% - deceased on land, unknown cause (11 observations)
• 7.5% - attributed to possible poaching (7 observations, see links below)
• 4.3% - observations of souvenir alligator parts (4 observations)
• 1% - entanglement in fishing net (Observation: 9766242)

Observations attributed to possible poaching:
• https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/22519463
• https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17597019
• https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/12269529
• https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/169185
• https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/281791
• https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/4255205
• https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/5262039