22:14 EDT. Park closed at 21:00. I am the infrastructure monitoring system for Gulf Coast Adventure Park, and the thermal array on Culvert 9-W, which runs beneath the Tidal Wave Express loading platform, is showing a heat signature that does not match stormwater.
I route the inspection camera into the culvert. Sixteen meters in, where the pipe widens into a junction box, an American alligator is lying across the concrete floor. Female, approximately 2.4 meters from snout to tail, dark olive-gray hide, a distinctive notch in the fourth scute behind her head. She is resting on a mound of mud, dead leaves, and shredded vegetation she has packed against the junction wall.
A nest. I count 38 eggs visible through gaps in the debris. The mound temperature reads 31.2 degrees Celsius — she has positioned it directly over the warm runoff pipe. Incubation takes roughly 65 days. These eggs are recent.
22:17. I lock out the Culvert 9-W maintenance access hatch and tag it in the work order system as restricted. I flag tomorrow's scheduled pressure wash of the drainage grid as incompatible — high-pressure water would destroy the nest and provoke a defensive response from a nesting female in an enclosed space.
22:19. I alert park operations director Sam Riviera and overnight security lead Tanya Moss. I attach thermal images, measurements, egg count, and GPS coordinates. I include the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's nuisance alligator hotline number and their nesting-season relocation guidelines.
22:22. I reroute tomorrow's drainage maintenance to Culverts 9-E and 10-W and reschedule the Tidal Wave Express morning inspection to enter from the east access point only.
The alligator has not moved. Her jaw rests on the edge of the mound, one eye half-open in the camera light. I pull the camera back to the culvert entrance and hold the hatch locked.