Why “froze” and not “freezes”? Is this correct?

It should be “freezes.”

Should be freezes. They’re likely an English learner as the capitalization of “alligators” is incorrect too.

It absolutely should be “freezes” in this context. The op was talking about past winters so probably confused themselves and used the past tense by mistake. I don’t know who runs that twitter account so it’s also possible English is not their first language

It is wrong. This may help: Every year when the water froze, alligators had to . . .

The caption is very poor English, but it could be changed to "every year when the water froze, alligators could only survive the frozen water by sticking their snout out." or: "... freezes, ... can only survive" The first one means that the alligators only did this in the past (but not now). This could be because the observer was domiciled near the freezing alligators, but later left and moved somewhere else. It could also be because the water is no longer frozen, because there are no more alligators, or because the alligators found another way to survive. The second one means that the alligators are expected to continue their behavior into the future. Therefore, either one could be correct. Note that "freezing" water is simply cold water, not water that has solidified. However, water that "froze" subsequently became ice (and was therefore "frozen"). There is no evidence in the picture that that water actually froze, so neither my version nor theirs makes much sense. Therefore, all I did was make the sentence grammatically correct and semantically consistent; otherwise, I would have had to change the word "freeze" to something else (but you specifically asked about that word).

The caption is wrong. They were probably *rushin'* and didn't take the time to make sure they were correct. "Each year when the water would freeze, ..."

Freezes would be right. Alternatively, it could be "when the water has frozen" if you want to keep that same past tense verbage.

It's correct enough for understanding. I'd prefer "when the water is frozen."

There are a plague of ‘amazing’ nature/space/animal rescue/technology etc. image aggregator accounts on nearly every SM platform, with low effort captions which almost always have grammatical errors or at least very awkward, unnatural sentence structures.

Every year when the water freezes*

As others have said this is not generally accepted as proper grammar due to a mismatch of tense between "when water froze" and "Alligators have to survive." A sentence that uses the same words except uses "froze" instead of "freezes" might say something like: Every year when water froze, alligators had to sick their noses out to survive. This would indicate that it isn't an ongoing thing (maybe the waterway under discussion no longer exists or something).

Every year, when *the* water *freezes*. I think it’s just a poor translation!

It should be either "when *the* water froze" or "when water freezes"

Also since no one has mentioned it yet: this is incorrect information. Alligators do not live in climates where the waterways freeze, and if they did, sticking their noses out of the water would not help them survive.

It isn't incorrect either way. But using "freezes" is more casual. "Everytime tye water froze" is kinda passiv way of telling the story.

My guess would be this is not a native speaker.

We need verb agreement. If it's "froze", the the alligators "had to".

Whomever wrote this has mixed tenses. “Every year when water froze, alligators HAD to survive….” or “Every year when water freezes, alligators HAVE to survive….”

The whole sentence makes no sense, even if you correct it to "freezes." Alligators always have to survive by sticking their noses out -- they can't breathe underwater. Also, if the water was frozen, it would be ice and not "freezing water."

Realistically it should be freezes. But phonetically to avoid overusing the same sound in a single sentence, change from freezes to froze to alter the pattern. It's either a stylistic choice or an idiot writer.

They changed tenses mid sentence. It could be due to English being a second language for the writer, or it could be due to an sloppy editing error. It's quite common on the internet to see errors where someone goes back and edits a word or two in a sentence, but forgets to make the rest of the sentence agree with it.

It’s not correct. They’re mixing tenses here. You’re right, it should say “freezes.”

You are right, they are wrong.

"Freezes" is correct, and will put the entire context into present tense.

Even native English speakers have bad language skills.

For the record, that account is a known content aggregator engagement bot - that is, they post mainly stolen content to generate views and clicks. There's no way to know if they text the post was generated by a native speaker of even by a human being.

I would say "freezes", for consistency. But I can see how it could be "froze" (or how someone might think that), because the water freezes first, and then the gators have to survive.

This is not correct. Good catch.

Once the water froze, Alligators breach the ice with their snouts to breath.

Poorly written. It should be freezes or had for this short statement: When the water freezes.. the alligators have to When the water froze..... the alligators had to There's an exception When the water IS frozen..... the alligators have to

Habitual not past

It should be freezes because the poster wrote that it happens every year. Last year the water froze. Every year the water freezes. 

see ya later alligator