# Are there alligators in the Illinois River yet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 29, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678 "2013-01-29T02:21:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/1 "2013-01-29T02:21:29Z")
If not, how long do we have to wait? It’s going to be 65F in Chicago tomorrow. That’s happened a lot lately so, because I’m too intellectually lazy to bother investigating more, I’m blaming it on Global Warming. The Illinois River is chock full of Asian Carp, an invasive species from, well, Asia. They are cleaner and tastier than the ones in Asia, but folks there prefer fresh, not froze, so that market has not decimated the carp population like I hoped. Folks here mostly don’t like carp so my hopes that Man would do his thing and make them extinct fell through. This leaves natural predators to clean up our mess, and in this case that means gators, but the cold winters up here have kept them out of the Illinois for hundreds or thousands of years. Winters are warmer now, and likely to get warmer. Will it soon be warm enough to allow gators to dig dens warm enough for them to winter over? Because I want to see the look on those carps’ faces when they meet a new top predator. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/2 "2013-01-29T19:09:42Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Are there alligators in the Illinois River yet? No. > [@](#): > > If not, how long do we have to wait? At the rate their range is extending, a good long while. (The significant temperature is not that of the warmest winter days, but rather the coldest.) > [@](#): > > I want to see the look on those carps’ faces when they meet a new top predator. Perhaps you could fetch a few from Florida and haul them to Chicago? ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/3 "2013-01-29T19:41:52Z")
Virginia I think is considerably warmer than the Chicago area and we do not have gators in the Potomac or any other Va river. Far as I know. They’d be useful, too because the Potomac now has snakeheads (also from Asia) and they are invasive ([and apparently tasty](http://www.wtop.com/41/3209984/Snakehead-for-Charity)). ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/4 "2013-01-29T19:48:32Z")
People largely won’t eat Asian carp because they think it is related to common carp. It isn’t. Fishermen also have a low opinion of them because they are not a game fish; they won’t strike any bait as they’re herbavore/filter feeders. That and the jumping. They actually taste just fine, but you have to know how to fillet around their odd bones. There’s good videos on YouTube for this. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/5 "2013-01-29T19:51:58Z")
Alligator Gars have been found as far north as Meredosia, Illinois on the Illinois river. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/6 "2013-01-29T19:53:39Z")
[This page](http://srelherp.uga.edu/alligators/allmis.htm) suggests that alligators can survive in freezing temperatures to some extent: > [@](#): > > When ponds begin to freeze, alligators will stick their snouts above water. The snout is frozen in place, but the animal can still breathe. ---
**Author:** ![Ionizer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5daacb/32.png) [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/7 "2013-01-29T20:32:37Z")
As an FYI, there is a successful gator farm near Twin Falls, Idaho (on Snake River) where they do just fine. Kinda neat seeing them with snow on-ground or even during blizzards. Here’s a [vid I found (YouTube, fwiw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pb_Zsj9Ows)). Of course, the area there is well-known locally for its warm/hot springs, and in that video you can see the flow rate of the springs feeding the farm itself. IIRC, the water is not as warm as the ‘swimming/bathing’ places just upriver, but it is definitely not typical snow-melt runoff or whatever. When river flow is low, the river downstream of Hagerman’s hot springs tend to be a bit warmer than usual, but I am unsure if it stays warm enough for year-round gator living. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/8 "2013-01-30T01:54:18Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > At the rate their range is extending, a good long while. (The significant temperature is not that of the warmest winter days, but rather the coldest.) Yeah, but this spate of mild winters is just a few years old. On its own not long enough to project a trend, but long enough to raise an eyebrow and trigger this thread. > [@Lukeinva](#): > > Virginia I think is considerably warmer than the Chicago area and we do not have gators in the Potomac or any other Va river. Far as I know. They’d be useful, too because the Potomac now has snakeheads (also from Asia) and they are invasive ([and apparently tasty](http://www.wtop.com/41/3209984/Snakehead-for-Charity)). But were gators ever native to the Potomac or its tributaries? They just need to keep moving up the Mississippi and turn right at Grafton. We had a snakehead scare, but nothing came of it. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/9 "2013-01-30T16:20:56Z")
Atlanta has always been well north of the gator line, but we’ve had more and more [gator sightings](http://www.nps.gov/chat/parknews/alligator-spotted-in-chattahoochee-river.htm) in the past few years. The authorities always say the gators found here must be released pets, but I am not so sure. I suspect they are simply expanding their range northward as temperatures increase. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/10 "2013-01-30T23:46:08Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Yeah, but this spate of mild winters is just a few years old. On its own not long enough to project a trend, but long enough to raise an eyebrow and trigger this thread. It is more than just the past few winters that have been warmer; [here](http://blog.nwf.org/2012/01/new-plant-hardiness-zones-confirm-what-gardeners-already-know-about-global-warming/plant-hardiness-comparison/) is a comparison of the hardiness zone maps from 1990 and 2012, which show significant changes. Although, these maps show longer-term trends; I can tell you that Zone 6 isn’t really appropriate for where I live anymore (the 2012 map puts me in the middle of it); Zone 6 means minimum temperatures of 0 to 10 below, while official NWS records show that temperatures haven’t been below 0 since 1999; Zone 7 would seem more appropriate (0-10 above; zones are further split into A and B, for 0-5 and 5-10 in this case). Of course, I know you mean the past few winters, which have been much warmer than the trend, although a warm winter overall doesn’t mean that there aren’t colder days. If anything, temperatures have been [more volatile with warm and cold extremes](http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2338): > [@](#): > > Chicago’s craziest January in memory got even stranger today, when a surge of warm air pushed the temperature to 61°F at 7 am, breaking the previous high temperature record of 59°F for the date. Spring-like thunderstorms, accompanied by temperatures in the mid-60s are expected this afternoon–just a week after the city recorded a high temperature of 11°F and a low of -1°F (on January 22nd.)… > > …A cold air mass combined with a fresh snow pack and calm winds allowed Nowata to hit a low of -31°F on February 10, 2011–the all-time coldest temperature ever recorded in Oklahoma. Gradual warming accelerated over the next week, and temperatures peaked at a record high of 79 degrees on February 17. A low of 31 below is in Zone 3 (scale [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardiness_zone#USDA_Hardiness_Zones)), when Oklahoma is shown as mostly Zone 7 (of course, the zones depict typical extreme minimum temperatures). ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-alligators-in-the-illinois-river-yet/648678/11 "2013-01-31T02:52:35Z")
Four foot Alligator (or Cayman) found in pond [Richmond Missouri](http://www.kctv5.com/story/20661417/rural-fishermans-big-catch-has-whole-town-talking), East Northeast of Kansas City.