RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL — In Florida, you don't have to look too far to find alligators. And in Rio de Janeiro, you only have to poke your head into one of the city's many waterways to get a good look at a caiman, an alligator-like animal with a wide snout and narrow teeth.
When the 2016 Olympics roll into town, visitors may get up close and personal with the caimans.
Over the last few years, they've been spotted slithering around the Olympics golf courses (though organizers say there is no risk of this happening during the games), the Barra Olympic Park (where the largest cluster of venues is located) and even in the Olympic Village, where athletes will live.
There is little risk to humans if the creatures — closely related to alligators — show up at the Olympics. The bigger risk is to the caimans, which could be injured by people who don't know how to handle them.
During a recent visit to Rio, it didn't take long to spot some of the approximately 6,000 caimans that live in a lagoon system near the Olympics infrastructure.
Ricardo Freitas, a biologist and founder of Rio's Instituto Jacare (Caiman Institute), took me to a caiman-filled channel in the Recreio dos Bandeirantes neighborhood, not far from the Olympic Village.
The channel smelled like raw sewage, but the caimans seemed to be thriving. "Ten years ago, you could see them two meters under water, because the water was so clear. Now you can't even see them when they're right below the surface," says Freitas. "They have very strong immunological systems to be able to survive here."
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The caimans feed on birds, rats, and the food that humans constantly throw at them. In Rio, they often make their nests out of trash.
Not all of the channels they live in contain enough food, so the caimans can sometimes be found wandering into people's homes, looking for something to eat. The animals live an average of 70 years, but development and pollution is causing their numbers to dwindle.
Still, according to Freitas, there are caimans all over the city. "In every body of water, there are caimans inside," he says.
That includes the water surrounding future Olympics sites.
In August, reporters from Radio Canada found caimans in the water just a few hundred feet from the Olympic Park. When I visited the same location in September, the caimans were nowhere to be found. But construction workers at the site said that they usually came out every morning. I had visited in late afternoon, and missed them.
The good news: caimans aren't considered a threat to humans — though Freitas, who works with the creatures closely, did have a finger bitten off by one of them.
Freitas believes that there is a strong chance the caimans will pop up in or around Olympic venues during the games. "What will they do? They'll call me," he says. "I'm the only caiman specialist here."
Ariel Schwartz reported from Brazil as a fellow with the International Reporting Project (IRP).
