Watch alligators hatch as Texas park will release them back into wild — with a new mom

Baby alligators will soon make their way back to a Texas state park after wildlife officials helped them hatch from their eggs.

As the hatchlings popped out of their eggs, the state park recorded video, capturing the moments these little reptiles first opened their eyes to the outside world.

This world, though, was without their maternal mother.

Before they hatched, the alligator eggs were rescued from “an at-risk nest” in Brazos Bend State Park during “baby alligator season,” Texas Parks and Wildlife said when sharing the video on Facebook.

Brazos Bend State Park plans to release the babies back into the wild, but with a new mom.

“In the wild they do need their mother to survive,” Texas Parks and Wildlife said. “The park will find a mother alligator that has hatchlings and they will add these little guys with hers. That way she will take care of them for us.”

When they re-enter the wild, the baby gators will be joining many other alligators in Brazos Bend State Park. is about an hour southeast of Houston.

“No one knows the exact number, but it is estimated that about 250 or so alligators over 6’ long reside in the 1000 acres of water here,” state wildlife officials report. The state park sits on both sides of the Brazos River, about an hour southwest of Houston.

The gators typically mate in May and June, officials said, and then they build nests in late June and early July. Female alligators typically lay 20 to 60 eggs, and they typically hatch in late August and early September.

“Mama alligator guards her nest vigorously,” officials said, though only one in about 100 alligators live to grow to at least 3-feet long as they are prey to fish, turtles, frogs, snakes, birds and mammals.

Some alligators in Brazos Bend reach 15-16 feet long.

The best places to see alligators at the state park is at Elm and 40-Acre Lake, the park’s two largest lakes, in spring and fall. Note that “anywhere there is water you may see an alligator,” officials said.

Alligators have been in the area “off and on, as temperatures and geological conditions allowed, for the last 65 million years,” officials said.

Since officials have kept records, the park says nobody has been injured or killed by an alligator at Brazos Bend State Park.

This story was originally published August 30, 2021 at 9:24 AM with the headline "Watch alligators hatch as Texas park will release them back into wild — with a new mom."