To your question, very possibly:
One of the most frequently asked questions is "Do you have alligators on Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge?" Indeed, we do have alligators. However, locals speculate that the Alligator River, for which the refuge was named, was named for it's shape. It is likely the river was named prior to alligators making it this far north. With the warming trend, the range for American Alligators has been expanding further north for many years.
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Alligator_River/wildlife_and_habitat/american_alligator.html
As average annual temperatures have increased in recent years, the zone in which alligators could plausibly both survive and reproduce has moved north. With the northernmost known population of gators so close to Virginia in the first place, it wouldn’t take much to get them established in a completely new state. Some locals already report sightings in the vicinity of Back Bay, southwest of Virginia Beach. Officially, there are no alligators in Virginia. But in practice, I don’t think the alligators have paid attention.
Last year, I put the word out that I was interested in alligator sightings within Virginia, and I was showered with emails reporting gators seen and in some cases even killed. Even the official, fully documented cases have been marching steadily north. There is little question that a grown alligator was documented only 5 miles from the Virginia border in 2011. Odds are that the species is now here in my home state. The question is how many of them have arrived and whether the spring temperatures are high enough to allow them to breed.
Arguing against the concept of global warming has become an exercise in absurdity. Last year was the warmest year on record in the Lower 48 states, and the weather is becoming hotter on the whole. This temperature shift has ecological consequences that tend to favor cold-blooded wildlife. The American alligator, the venomous cottonmouth snake, and the Carolina anole each find the northern limit of their range right around the Virginia/North Carolina border. All can now expand their ranges.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/animal_forecast/2013/02/alligators_in_virginia_climate_change_could_be_pushing_cold_blooded_species.html
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