Crocodiles in Texas?
Yoshihiko and Atsuko Mukoyama
(Image from Baylor Magazine)
My copy of Baylor Magazine arrived yesterday featuring a story by Lane Murphy about Yoshihiko Mukoyama, professor of English in Japan and expert on Robert Browning who studied for his doctorate at Baylor and remained there until shortly after my arrival as a freshman in 1975, though I didn't know of him at that time.
Mukoyama chose Baylor because of the stories of Texas told by his Uncle Kisaku Kitsuta:
The young Mukoyama was fascinated by Kitsuta's tales from Texas, in which he described hunting and fishing in wide open spaces.Eh? Crocodiles in Texas? I wasn't aware of any crocodiles in Texas. Mukoyama found none either:
"As a foreign national he was not permitted to carry a gun, so he hired someone to carry it," says Mukoyama. "Dr. Kitsuta said he especially enjoyed hunting crocodiles."
"When I came to Waco, I wanted to see the crocodiles, but I could find none in the Brazos River," he says.So . . . was his Uncle Kisaku speaking of alligators rather than crocodiles? -- not that any alligators are to be found in the Brazos, either.
Can crocodiles actually be found in Texas?
Labels: Alligators, Baylor University, Crocodiles
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 4:31 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
You might be surprised. I saw on TV the other night that an eight foot long gator had been captured in the Black River by the Arkansas Game and Fish people.
Still, the report said they were wondering how the heck it happened to be where it was.
Then again, I don't recall seeing armadillos (in Arkansas) until I returned from the Navy.
JK
I'm not surprised by alligators in the southern states (though one in the Black River is a bit far north for my comfort), but I'd be truly surprised by crocodiles in Texas.
However, I've been surprised more than once in my life.
Jeffery Hodges
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You'll appreciate that when my wife forst went to the US, she accepted an offer of admission to The University of Chicago because she was under the misapprehension that it was in the "Midwest" and that she would be in Little House on the Prairie country. Being quickly disabuse of that notion upon arrival at O'Hare, she quickly arranged to transfer out and, on such short notice, ended up at U. Minnesota M/St. Paul. That turned out not to be very appearing because as the sole Korean female on a campus with a significant number of male Korean grad students, she was told in no uncertain terms that she was expected to take care of everyone's laundry and fix them Korean meals 2-3 times a week. Since that was precisely the sort of bullshit she was determined to escape, she transferred again to the Duluth campus, where she was let alone but for the locals who wondered if she was Vietnamese, Hmong or Meo. This was in the late '80s.
What a series of misadventures!
I think that I recall you reciting these in a drinking session last summer, but I had forgotten the details and appreciate having my faulty memory refreshed.
I suppose that your wife didn't see any crocodiles . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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USGS (link found through Wikipedia) claims that alligators range into western Texas. Crocodiles, apparently not, as afar as Wikipedia knows. The Mexican crocodile seems to come closest.
I ran a Lexis-Nexis search and the only results for Texas crocodiles were prehistoric fossils.
Prehistoric, eh? Perhaps the good doctor visited Texas in the Jurassic Era and confused a Tex Rex with a crocodile?
As for alligators, I'd wager that the article meant eastern Texas.
Thanks for the information, by the way.
Jeffery Hodges
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I thought that alligators, not crocodiles, were native to the US and found the same links as you, John B. There is a small population of crocodiles in south Florida, where the water is always warm. I wonder if the crocs in south Florida descended from escaped or released animals, like Burmese pythons.
I seem to recall seeing a small spot on a map of Florida where crocs live, the one exception to the general truth that crocs don't live the US. I think that they're native there.
Jeffery Hodges
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There aren't any crocodiles in the wild in Texas. However there are lots of Alligators in Texas. They go as far NW as the Dallas-Fort Worth area and live all throughout east Texas. And yes they do live in the Brazos River. Go to Brazos Bend State Park sometime. I saw 40 there one day in a span of about 2 hours.
Thanks, Anonymous, for the details. I'm surprised to learn that alligators live as far north as Dallas! I attended Baylor for four years and didn't see any, but I'd think twice now before hanging around the Brazos banks.
How do the gators survive the winter cold, for even in Waco, the winters can get very chilly?
Jeffery Hodges
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