If she and Cherkiss are correct, then the Lower Keys have joined the Everglades as home to breeding populations of alligators and crocodiles.

Unlike the Upper and Middle Keys, the Lower Keys have long been home to a small community of alligators. The famed Everglades denizen is one of the main draws at Blue Hole, an old railroad quarry in the Key Deer refuge that has evolved into a rainfall-fueled freshwater lake. Alligators also make homes on other parts of Big Pine, as well as surrounding Lower Keys islands, where the limestone bedrock is of a less porous variety than the keystone bedrock of the northern island chain. As a result, those islands retain enough freshwater during the dry season to provide acceptable, if not especially good, habitat for freshwater-dependent alligators.

Lower Keys promoters now can decide whether to follow the path of Everglades backers by promoting the fact the area harbors both alligators and crocodiles. After all, the area already focuses much of its marketing resources around its attributes as an ecotourist destination.