A Rice University professor joins a game warden and his family as they check on the...
Barry Eversole, left, and his son, Cord Eversole, a professor of wildlife ecology at Stephen F. Austin State University. Along with his father, a game warden with Texas Parks and Wildlife, Cord is monitoring the alligator population at Brazos Bend State Park in Fort Bend County.Seated in an elevated captain’s chair with a 500 horsepower engine inches behind his head, Barry Eversole eases forward on the accelerator as the engine roars to life, plunging the airboat into the water.
Despite their importance, alligators were nearly exterminated in the first half of the 20th century due to habitat loss and overhunting as demand for their hides surged. They were listed as federally endangered in 1967. The protection worked. Populations across the southeast United States recovered, and alligators were removed from the endangered species list in 1987. In Texas, alligator populations are now carefully managed, with hunting allowed seasonally.
“I’ve been around alligators all my life,” he said. “I rode my bicycle all over this place before there was ever a park. There were always alligators here. They’ve always been a part of my world.” He has. Cord went on to earn a bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. in wildlife science from Texas A&M University-Kingsville. For his dissertation research, Cord returned to the wetlands of his childhood. He knew there were plenty of alligators there – yet no one knew exactly how many.
“You can put your hand into the nesting material and it’s hot,” Cord says. “If you ever put your hand in a compost pile or into mulch, it's the same process. That heat, that’s what incubates the eggs.” Cord has been concerned about the prospects for the eggs laid this summer. “I measured the moisture content of the nest material and it was bone dry,” he said.
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