RISING WATERS
\nAre these cold-blooded apex predators South Carolina’s\u00a0new\u00a0climate-change\u00a0refugees?<\/p>\n
By Jonah\u00a0Chester
\nApril 26, 2026<\/p>\n
GEORGETOWN \u2014 The pickup bumped and jostled as it rolled down the dirt road. Suddenly, a fist pounded on the hood.\u00a0Thomas Rainwater pulled to an abrupt stop as Miriam Boucher rocketed out of the truck bed, fishing rod in hand. She made a bee-line for the area where she spotted the gator, which had slid quickly into its dark pond.<\/p>\n
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Miriam Boucher looks over the landscape of the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center while on a research visit to document the gator population at the reserve, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n
Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n
In the blink of an eye, Boucher was by the water. A practiced flick of the wrist, and the line\u00a0whizzed\u00a0out and plopped into the pond. Haste became patience, a steady reeling of the line, eyes scanning the pond for disturbances.<\/p>\n
![\"Arts](\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/app\/logos\/rising-waters.svg\")
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The Post and Courier\u2019s Rising Waters Lab focuses on impacts of climate change and related policies and practices. It is supported by donations and grants to the nonprofit Public Service and Investigative Fund, whose contributors are subject to the same coverage we apply to everyone else. For more information and to make a donation, go to postandcourierfund.com.<\/a> There’s an art to catching alligators. Boucher and Rainwater \u2014 both crocodilian biologists with Clemson University\u2019s Baruch Institute \u2014 are practiced artists. This is their studio.<\/p>\n Located on the southern end of Winyah Bay, the 24,000-acre Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center is one of the premiere destinations for alligator researchers in the Southeast. It’s the site of the world’s longest-running alligator study, which kicked off in 1979, and has been a field work location for more than three-dozen peer-reviewed gator studies.<\/a><\/p>\n Yawkey is managed and owned by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, but all of its operations are privately funded by the Yawkey Foundation. Hunting and fishing are off-limits since this isn’t a taxpayer-funded preserve.\u00a0<\/p>\n Miriam Boucher holds a snare in one hand and an alligator with the tension of a heavy fishing rod in the other on a research trip at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n But rising seas are encroaching on the preserve and flushing salt water into its wetlands, threatening the future of alligator research here. And as waters rise and disrupt gator habitats, the creatures might seek greener pastures.<\/p>\n TOM YAWKEY WILDLIFE CENTER: The Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center covers about 24,000 acres in Georgetown County. (Source: Esri)<\/p>\n Brandon Lockett\/Staff<\/a><\/p>\n Boucher, a PhD candidate who previously has worked with crocodiles in South America, said that if gators start moving into developed areas, they risk hitting what she calls a “cultural carrying capacity.”<\/p>\n \u201cHow many alligators will human populations tolerate within these urban or suburban systems?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n That displacement could already be happening.<\/p>\n South Carolina has experienced six gator-caused fatalities over the past decade, according to the nonprofit CrocAttack<\/a>, which maintains a global database of more than 8,500 crocodilian assaults.\u00a0(Crocodilia is the order encompassing both alligators and crocodiles.)<\/p>\n Prior to that, the state didn’t experience a single gator-related fatality since at least 1967 \u2014 the earliest year for which the database has records.<\/p>\n Miriam Boucher tosses hooks on the end of kevlar strings to drag across the water\u2019s floor to catch alligator as a part of a research expedition into the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n The fatalities coincide roughly with both a sea level rise-driven surge in tidal flooding<\/a> and a population boom<\/a> across coastal South Carolina.<\/p>\n Jamie Dozier, who\u00a0oversees the preserve for SCDNR and has worked at Yawkey since 2006, has noticed the rising waters.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aSince about 2016, there seems to be a much higher frequency and amplitude of flooding from big tide events,\u201d Dozier said in a phone interview. \u201cWe used to have one or two of the big amplitude tides a year. Now it seems to be almost monthly.”<\/p>\n Miriam Boucher casts her rod over Thomas Rainwater as the two crocodile biologists search for \u201cBertha, a large female residing at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center which has been documented in the area for over 40 years, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n That frequency likely will continue to increase.<\/p>\n The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that sea levels across coastal South Carolina will\u00a0rise roughly a foot over the next 25 years.<\/a>\u00a0Rising waters also are warming waters, and marine heatwaves are helping to fuel a\u00a0more powerful generation of tropical cyclones.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWith sea level rise, (alligators) that are going to be displaced have nowhere to go,\u201d Rainwater said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to collide with humans. Humans usually win.\u201d<\/p>\n The rod arched with tension. Boucher hooked the gator. Nearby, Rainwater cast another line into the pond, the lures de-barbed to ensure the creature wouldn’t be harmed.<\/p>\n An alligator sunbathes on the shore of a waterway inside the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n Getting the alligator on the line was the easy part. Now, the two had to get the creature off the bottom of the pond and on to dry land.<\/p>\n Boucher’s line was taut. The alligator would have to come up for air. Now it became a game of endurance. Who would win?<\/p>\n A grey heron flies over the marsh grass after jumping away ahead of Thomas Rainwater driving down the roads of the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n To land an alligator<\/p>\n Minutes passed. The gator refused to surface, despite the coaxing of Rainwater and Boucher. They speculated that he\u2019d set up shop under a log, and was using it to bolster his leverage on the humans.<\/p>\n Gators have extremely high site fidelity. Once they lock in on an area, they don\u2019t like to move. If they are relocated, they\u2019ll typically strive to find their way back home \u2014 even if that journey might be several miles.<\/p>\n Miriam Boucher jumps out of the bed of a truck after seeing an alligator on the shore of a body of water she believed to be \u201cBertha,\u201d a large female at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n DNR often will euthanize a gator instead of trying to relocate it. And feeding a gator, even if well-intentioned, is essentially signing the creature\u2019s death warrant. An alligator that\u2019s lost its fear of humans is flagged as a \u201cnuisance gator\u201d and quickly dispatched.<\/p>\n \u201cIf moved to a \u2018wild\u2019 place where it might not be a nuisance to people, it can cause major problems for the alligators already living there,\u201d according to DNR<\/a>. \u201cAlligators have a complex social structure and will kill smaller alligators that move into their territory.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas Rainwater, left, and Miriam Boucher, right, keep tension on their lines as they work to wait out an alligator they hope to capture and take census data on at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n Even if they can be moved, many of those “wild” places might not be suitable habitat for much longer.<\/p>\n Yawkey is dotted with “managed wetlands” which are slowly filling with salt water and becoming a flood risk. Rice trunks (wooden tide gates) scattered across the landscape should allow DNR to control the water levels in these areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dozier explained that water can only be let out of the ponds during low tide when levels outside of the gate are lower than those inside. But water levels at low tide have risen noticeably in the past few years, he said.<\/p>\n Heavy fishing rods and snares stick out of the bed of a truck used by Miriam Boucher and Thomas Rainwater on a research trip to the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aMost of the time when people think about impacts of flooding, they’re thinking about the high water events,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are definitely a problem. \u200aBut I think what gets overlooked oftentimes is that low tide is not getting as low and staying low as long as it once did.”<\/p>\n Dozier said it\u2019s possible that those areas may end up becoming permanently flooded.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWhich may not be as good for some species, but we may be able to kind of tweak that to make it work as well as we can,\u201d he said. He said DNR might also have to retreat certain buildings and roads from rising waters, potentially complicating their work on the preserve.<\/p>\n Thomas Rainwater holds onto kevlar strings on heavy tension with an alligator on the other end of them during a research trip at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n Bubbles started rippling on the surface of the pond. Just a simmer, then a boil. A plume of mud shot up and spread across the water, turning it from black to brown. Something was moving down there.<\/p>\n The gator\u2019s snout broke the surface of the pond. Boucher and Rainwater pulled hard to get it out of the water; he grabbed the tail and she got ahold of the front end. Inch by inch, all 12 feet of the alligator grudgingly emerged from the dark water.<\/p>\n The creature might\u2019ve been forced into the open air, but he wasn\u2019t inclined to move much more. Fresh out of brumation (essentially cold-blooded hibernation), the chilly March air left him lethargic.<\/p>\n Bubbles surface from the location where a snagged gator waits out researchers at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n Rainwater held the line to keep the gator from submerging again. Boucher dashed over to the truck. She tied the line holding the gator onto the front grill, and threw the vehicle into reverse. The gator slid over the grass and into the row.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is probably one of the biggest ones out here right now,\u201d Rainwater said.<\/p>\n The alligator is maybe a little annoyed at having his day disrupted, but none the worse for wear. This isn\u2019t his first rodeo. He already has a metal tag marked \u201cCLEMSON\u201d on his back flipper, indicating he\u2019s been pulled to shore before.\u00a0<\/p>\n A snared alligator begins to death roll while on a line set by researchers during a visit to the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n Battle scars<\/p>\n Boucher tied the creature so she and Rainwater could log info on him and run a series of field tests. It’ll be one more small addition to the mountain of research that is Yawkey’s Crocodilian Library of Alexandria.<\/p>\n Across his armored back, the alligator wore the wounds of past battles.<\/p>\n Thomas Rainwater jumps to cover the eyes of and put pressure on the jaws of a 12-foot alligator he and Miriam Boucher caught during a research trip into the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s a big scar,\u201d Boucher said, indicating a pockmark on his back. \u201cThat\u2019s a hole from a tooth right there.\u201d<\/p>\n His skin was chilly and rough to the touch. Beneath a scaly exterior, solid muscle indicated his strength and speed.<\/p>\n A snare holds on at full tension to the tail of a 12-foot alligator during a research trip to the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Georgetown County.<\/p>\n Henry Taylor\/Staff<\/p>\n \u201cThis guy certainly hasn\u2019t been missing meals,\u201d Boucher observed as she marked down measurements on a clip board.<\/p>\n
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