by Carlton Ward Jr. | April 21, 2025
Carlton Ward Jr. Captures an Everglades Alligator on His Trail Camera
Wildlife photographer Carlton Ward Jr. finds an Everglades predator hiding in plain sight.
For my Path of the Panther project for Wildpath and National Geographic, I relied heavily on camera traps—professional cameras and flashes hidden along game trails and triggered by motion detectors. The scene in this photo, in the upper reaches of the Fakahatchee Strand, is one of my favorite camera trap sites. The strand is filled with rainwater nearly half the year. When it dries, a labyrinth of pathways is revealed. Swamps like this one gave the Florida panther refuge from persecution by people that caused regional extinction everywhere else in the eastern United States, except for southern Florida. Panthers may prefer uplands, but their ability to survive in swamps is a large part of why they exist today.
When I first walked this trail in 2015, I envisioned a photograph: a panther stepping over a log, looking straight into the camera as it glided between cypress knees, the subtropical forest rising like a cathedral in the background. That picture ultimately became a reality (scan the QR code to see it). But, it took six years of trying, a timeline extended by the annual rainy season.
The first summer, the water didn’t rise until August and didn’t subside for another 18 months. Once while scouting the area, I came across a large gator skeleton just beneath the water’s surface, not realizing it was an omen.
I came back in the spring of 2017, when the trail was finally dry, eager to capture a panther photo before the water rose again. One panther did come through, but my camera position and lighting were less than ideal. I kept visiting this site every two weeks for four months. When the rains started that June, more than 20 inches fell in the first 10 days and didn’t stop, accumulating more than 100 inches by the end of the year. I kept the camera going once the rains started, still desperate for a panther to walk through. That didn’t happen for another four years.
See the photo six years in the making
When I returned to the camera two weeks later, the water was already a foot deep. I scrolled through the photos, seeing no panthers, but then noticed a hidden predator staring back at me. While feeling defeated in my original quest, this bycatch, a large alligator moving through the primordial swamp, has become one of my favorite photographs.
Three years later, at the peak of another wet season, I went back to this site for the last time. As I waded waist-deep through the water, cavalier from making the journey dozens of times and not carrying a walking stick long enough to poke the ground beyond my own toes, I ended up with a hand inside a large alligator’s mouth. That’s a story for another article. It only took two bites and didn’t hold on. It may have been this same gator. Thankfully, it seems that I, too, was bycatch.
