© The Image Bank/Getty ImagesSouthern Florida is the only place in the world where crocodiles, pictured, co-exist with American alligators
Two swimmers taking an early morning dip in a Florida canal have earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first humans in the United States to be bitten by an American crocodile, wildlife officials say.
Alejandro Jimenez, 26, and Lisset Rendon, 23, came face to face with the 9ft reptile at 2.30am on Sunday, after taking to the water during a house party in Gables by the Sea, an upscale neighbourhood of South Miami where saltwater crocodiles are prevalent.
As Jimenez recovered in hospital Tuesday from bite wounds to his torso and hands, and his girlfriend, who was bitten on her shoulder, rested at home, trappers continued to scour the canal for the giant critter.
Residents say there are at least three large crocodiles living in the water behind their homes and have given them the nicknames Pancho, Snaggletooth and Streetwalker, the last apparently noted for taking late-night strolls across roads in the neighbourhood.
"We're assuming it was one of these," Officer Jorge Pino of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) told the Guardian on Tuesday. "We had one on the hook for about an hour on Monday and tried to reel it in, but it got away.
"We'll be out there again all day today. It was an unfortunate incident and highlights the importance of following the rules and using common sense. It's the first time an American crocodile has bitten humans in the US and this couple was very lucky to escape with minor injuries. It could have been much worse."
He said the team of trappers would remove the crocodile, a federally protected species, from the neighbourhood and find it a new home in a wildlife sanctuary elsewhere in the state.
Jimenez was reluctant to talk about the incident on Tuesday, but Pino described a scene in which the swimmers fought for their lives before scrambling to the shore and being hauled out of the water by shocked partygoers drawn outside by the commotion.
Even so, he said, officials do not categorise it as an attack because the crocodile, a generally timid species that shies away from contact with humans, was in its own habitat and behaving as it usually would.
"Crocodiles are most active at dawn and dusk, they're looking for food, and this one would have interpreted what was in the water as food," he said. "It's common sense never to swim where you know there are crocodiles and alligators."
South East Florida is home to about 2,000 American crocodiles, living in coastal areas and in the area's abundance of saltwater canals and brackish creeks and mangrove swamps, according to the FWC.
Numbers have risen from about 300 since being listed as an endangered species in 1975, making it one of the commission's most successful conservation programmes.
Southern Florida, where freshwater from the Everglades National Park runs off into the sea, is the only place in the world where crocodiles co-exist with the much more common and aggressive American alligator. In recent years crocodiles, which can grow to about 15ft, have moved their habitat further north through parts of the state's extensive canal network.
Meanwhile, the FWC is likely to have to rewrite the public advice on its website that "there has never been a documented bite on a person by an American crocodile in Florida".
In 2011, a couple kayaking in the Florida Keys said they were bitten by a crocodile during an early morning excursion, but state officials later concluded there was no evidence of multiple bite pattern consistent with crocodiles or alligators and that scratches the couple suffered could not have been caused by the toenails of either reptile.
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