Last week, a female croc was run over by a tractor-trailer in Key Largo. Investigators now say that the rare American crocodile was likely looking for a place to nest.
The driver told the Florida Highway Patrol that he couldn't avoid the 8-foot-long reptile when it walked into the path of the truck.
American crocodiles nearly became extinct by the mid-1970s when only a handful of breeding females — all in the Keys — were known to exist. Habitat conservation on North Key Largo and the Everglades, along with endangered-species protection, helped the crocodile population recover to current estimates of about 2,000 adults.
In 2007, the American crocodile's protected status was changed to "threatened."