There are gators in Lady Bird Lake? 6 cool facts about wildlife on Austin's urban trail

A wide array of greens and critters claim as their home Austin’s Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail, the multiuse path that traces a ring around Lady Bird Lake. Some of them are rare, beautiful—others invasive and prickly.Austin’s Trail Conservancy is the nonprofit that oversees Butler’s operation. Their conservation manager, Collin McMichael, is an expert on the park’s natural elements because he spends much of his time knee deep in them.Here are five interesting facts about all that wriggles or grows around Lady Bird Lake.More:A power plant once split this East Austin neighborhood. Now the community is reclaiming it1. ‘The largest thing you’d see on the trail’Reptiles make up the vast majority of crawling wildlife on Butler—lizards, turtles, snakes—but Lady Bird Lake sometimes sees scaled visitors of a larger ilk, according to McMichael.Alligators are sometimes found in the lake, he said; they typically come up from the Del Valle area.A small gator made headlines in 2020, spotted...