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scaredy cat
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Posted: Thu Apr 12th, 2007 05:47 pm |
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This is one most people don't believe unless they've seen one or know about it.
Not a myth but real, about 30 years ago, 50 alligators were moved to the Wildlife Refuge near Decatur on the Tennessee River.
The pics came to me from a friend. They show a gator swimming with a deer in its mouth. That's right-a whole deer.
I'll post one, then the other. Interesting?
Attachment: gatordeer.JPG (Downloaded 320 times)
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scaredy cat
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Posted: Thu Apr 12th, 2007 05:49 pm |
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| Here's the other picture. You may hear "alligators can't survive this far north". Obviously they can. And do. Attachment: gatordeer2.JPG (Downloaded 320 times)
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watch1
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Posted: Fri Apr 13th, 2007 04:40 am |
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Thanks for the info and pics. I was told by a hunter last year that he had a prize hog dog that was taken by a big gator. He tried to get to it but couldn't. All he could do was watch as the gator swam away with his dog.
Every year there seems there is some type of Alligator attack in the news.
Here is one and this is one big gator: http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061130/NEWS/611300468/1289
Here is a good one. Not to smart but did save the dog: http://www.local6.com/problemsolvers/9458221/detail.html
Having a gator bite into your head has to bad: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/20/earlyshow/living/petplanet/main618634.shtml
These alligators are out there and they are nothing to play with. A real big one would have no trouble dealing with a grown man.
Mike (watch1)
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Smitty
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Posted: Fri Apr 13th, 2007 12:04 pm |
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| Those particular gator/deer pics were actually from Southern Georgia. http://www.fws.gov/southeast/news/2004/r04-073.html
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scaredy cat
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Posted: Fri Apr 13th, 2007 03:04 pm |
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Thanks for the correct info on the pictures. My friend had told me an alligator had been captured on a game cam locally and was trying to get the picture, then a few weeks later sent me those and said they came from a wildlife officer-type. Maybe he thought they were local.
Nevertheless there_was_a video from a news station, I believe it was whnt.com, that did show an island full of alligators on a wildlife officer's video just a few months back. If the link is still available I'll try to post it.
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scaredy cat
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Posted: Fri Apr 13th, 2007 07:56 pm |
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Here's the link to the text story.
http://whnt.com/Global/story.asp?s=4972198
They've taken the video down, though.
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Smitty
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Posted: Sat Apr 14th, 2007 04:17 am |
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Interesting story, Scaredy Cat. I'm glad you didn't take my post about the pictures in a negative way, because I sure didn't intend it that way. I had seen those pictures a long time back in an email that was going around, and remembered from that, that they were being labled as being from all over the place, and not where they really were from.
I have no doubt that there are all kinds of creepy critters out in the woods, rivers, etc...
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jazzinguitar
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Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 07:37 am |
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| wow, i had no idea they were so close to home.
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Bamafoot
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Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 03:34 pm |
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All my life I have heard the stories about the gators in the Tennessee River. I have heard 10 female ones were released to help reduce the # of carp, heard the same thing with 20. Heard they were released above and below the dam in Guntersville, depends on who tells it. Don't misunderstand me, I don't doubt they were released, we have done lots of strange things for lots of strange reasons. My brother, a cousin, and myself actually were fishing a very swampy area below the dam and came across several snapping turtles that were dead and their shells crushed, there was a wing from a crane but not anything else of it, and a big wallow in the mud. We assumed that was what that was from and eased on out of the area just in case. We never actually saw a gator or anything that would make us know that was what it was from, but we also weren't gonna hang around to see. I do know there are at least 2 in Inland Lake (off of Hwy 75, south of Oneonta). You can even go in the bait and tackle shop at the boat ramp and look at some of the pictures local fisherman have snapped. It is pretty neat, but I don't wanna swim there... 
Had to go dig a little. Here is a link to a forum discussing the gators... this one says "beaver control" and has varying #'s, but like I said, I don't have a doubt they are in there. It also talks about Wheeler (below the dam) and not Guntersville
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/alabgard/msg1115205512477.html
Last edited on Wed Aug 20th, 2008 03:44 pm by Bamafoot
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dwells
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Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 05:11 am |
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As most know we have quite a few here in bama also. Most on the Alabama river, but some in small creeks and afew in local lakes.Blue Lake(down close to Fla. line) for one has had a few attacks on humans in the past. But I haven't heard of any in quite a while. The last one I heard , a man got his arm bite off while saveing his little dog. 
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Lorraine
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Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 07:15 am |
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There's an 8-footer in the Chattahoochee near Atlanta. They haven't been able to catch him/her. I suspect it was probably someone's pet that was released or escaped.
My new sister-in-law's sister and her husband (biologists employed by the state of FL) have a 5-foot female gator they've raised from a baby. She sleeps under the bed in their guest room and has the run of the house and fenced yard.
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Donna C
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Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 03:23 pm |
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Well Lorraine.....darn good security system your sister-in-laws sister has there!
Donna
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Lorraine
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Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 03:28 pm |
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Lol! I want to go visit them so badly! I do love reptiles! Alligators are pretty amazing. Believe it or not, there are quite a few people who keep them as "pets." Female alligators, if raised from birth, seem to get along quite well with people. I know of one guy who has a couple of 6-foot female gators that insist upon sleeping on his bed at night! Others say when they're working on the computer or watching TV, their girl gators will seek them out so that they can rest their heads on their humans' feet or laps and nap. Bull alligators, however, are apparently unpredictable and potentially dangerous (or as their owners say, "sneaky") once they reach maturity, though I've heard of exceptions to that, too.
Last edited on Thu Aug 21st, 2008 03:29 pm by Lorraine
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raymisty2
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Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 04:29 pm |
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I've heard of them being in the Chattahoochee around Columbus and Phenix City. There's even beware of gator signs around Lake Martin. Boral Brick has a clay pit about 5 miles up the road out here in Crawford. It has lakes from where they mine clay and are filled with water so it's basically a swamp. My husband hauled clay for them and they've seen gators out there too. The owner even told them not to run over them with the dump trucks, lol. They were his "pets".
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dwells
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Posted: Fri Aug 22nd, 2008 06:01 am |
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| By the way Raymisty2 nice avatar!
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Catamount
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Posted: Thu Aug 28th, 2008 10:45 pm |
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I grew up on the Tennessee River and personally know some of the Conservation Officers that were involved in the alligator release there back in the 1960's or early 70's. There were around 60 gators released in the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge along the Tenn. River on Wheeler Lake to control the beaver population.
After the release, it was discovered by some bureaucrat that an "environmental impact study" had not been performed prior to the release, so it was ordered that all the gators were to be gathered up and gotten outta there.
Yeah right.......
So, there were several million of your tax dollars spent over the next several years trying to recapture all of the gators. After five years, beaucoup bucks spent, and thousands of man-hours expended, the total number of gators recaptured was five or six. Yup.... I know what you're thinkin'....
It was said that the rest of the gators would die off, the winters were too cold for them to survive. Well, somebody forgot to tell that to the gators. They are doing quite well, thank you.
In the years since then, there have been a few of them that have wandered off and been captured or killed elsewhere: at least one in Wilson Lake that I know of for sure, and a couple on Hwy 20/I-565 between Huntsville and Decatur, AL., and I'm sure there are some others that I can't recall now.
They seem to have done the best back in the swamps of the Refuge and Redstone Arsenal. When I worked on the Arsenal during the 80's and 90's, there were several individuals that lived in sloughs or ponds that we saw on a regular basis. Some of them grew quite large during those years. I used to have a technician that worked for me that I had to fuss at quite often for feeding one that lived near the range office on Test Area 6.
There was a BIG one (about 10 or 11ft) that lived a little further up range that I saw several times laying out sunning on the range road.
I have a sister, brother, brother-in-law, and several friends that still work on the Arsenal and they say that the gators are still seen on a regular basis there. I heard a report of some small gators being seen in a remote area of the Refuge swamp. If that is true, then they are reproducing.
The largest one I ever saw was out in the river, laid up against the north bank, just upstream from the mouth of Triana Creek. It was around 10 to 12ft. My fishing buddy cast and hit it on the back with a buzz-bait. Looked like somebody set off a depth charge over there. Scared me half to death. I thought it was gonna be one of those "'Hey y'all! Watch this!' - famous last words of a redneck" moments.
Last edited on Thu Aug 28th, 2008 10:46 pm by Catamount
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bassdave
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Posted: Thu Sep 4th, 2008 03:45 pm |
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| theres a couple of other pics that went along with these...if you look in background a game warden is standing there with the florida emblem on his arm and the trees all around are covered in spainish moss...this gator was in florida......bassdave
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Catamount
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Posted: Thu Sep 4th, 2008 10:05 pm |
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You are correct bassdave: Those pics are from Florida, but there really are gators in the Wheeler Lake area, especially in the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge and Redstone Arsenal areas of the Tennessee River.
Also, back in 1975, I helped an Alabama Conservation Officer friend of mine do an alligator population study on the Alabama River, within the city limits of Montgomery. We tagged a lot of six to eight footers, a few 10 footers and one that was at least 14ft long. VERY high pucker factor tagging that one. Tag stick was only 10ft long.
There is a housing project to the west of the capitol and downtown area that is right on the river. We found a couple of slides where the gators had been coming and going from the river up into the projects and catching cats & dogs on a regular basis. The 14 footer was layin' up on the bank right next to one of these slides, below the projects. They had some complaints about the gators layin' up in the hedges and ambushing pets in the projects. It's a wonder they hadn't eaten some kids.
I was amazed how many gators were right there in the city of Montgomery. I wonder if there are still that many in there.
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"There's things in these woods that only God-Almighty Himself knows what they are." - O'neal Sockwell's explanation to me, as to why I needed to carry a gun when I went in the woods on the back of our farm.
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Gena
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Posted: Wed Sep 10th, 2008 02:46 am |
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Ok, I can't swim in the ocean because of Jaws, and I know better than to swim in the fresh waters around the coastal regions due to appearing as gator bait, but now I understand it's not even safe for me to swim in the fresh waters of North Alabama. Is there no God???? I already had to worry about moccasins. Gees.
One of my ex brother in laws had gone to visit his family in lower Mississippi and he brought back two small gators. Someone turned him in to animal control and he got smacked for bringing the gators to Childersburg, Alabama from the gulf.
I don't know how yall feel about people who feel the need to own an exotic pet and then when that pet gets too big or they can't afford the up keep they let it go into the wild, but I don't like that at all. First of all, I'd like to go fishing without worrying that some idiot has released the pet gator they got when Miami Vice was cool, or have an anaconda attempt to climb in the boat with me because me or my dog looks tasty. If I wanted to live in an area were these animals were the normal, I would, and I would realized they are there and be on the look out for them. Hunters in Alabama would have no problem being on the look out for a wild boar or a mountain lion, but I think most hunters would doubt their eyes if they ran up on a tiger. (I took that one too far....lol) It wasn't too many years back that some guys collection of poisonous snakes got loose and he could not find a cobra. I believe it was in Moody, Al. (I'm not sure about the name of the town) And of course, they said a cobra could not survive our winters. Really?? How would you like to run up on that one while hunting for BF?
....Sorry for the rant. I'm stepping off my soap box now.
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Dutch
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Posted: Wed Sep 10th, 2008 03:46 pm |
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I know what you mean about released feral animals, Gena. You joke about the tiger, but I was stationed at Fort Polk, LA a few years ago when the post went on lock down because a young "pet" tiger was seen wandering the post. At first I thought someone saw an orange BF in quadrapedal mode, but the description was clear even down to the collar someone put on it.
Three days of searching by land and air, and with kids and pets locked indoors , revealed nothing. I'll tell you though, there is plenty of wildlife for it to survive on if it was not a cage tiger. Once while driving home after a shift at the Emergency Room there at Polk, I saw a black panther trot across the road in front of my headlights at midnight. This was right in the housing area where the woods came near both sides of the road. I found some other hunters who've seen it, or another one.
Here's a link to the tiger story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,131102,00.html
Dutch
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tennesseecherokee
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Posted: Wed Sep 10th, 2008 06:44 pm |
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| I think that if I lived close to that military base I would be very wary. Maybe this young tiger didn't know how to feed itself then but I 'll betcha it's got the hang of it by now! It ought to be full grown by now! Scary------TnC-----------
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Dutch
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Posted: Wed Sep 10th, 2008 08:56 pm |
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Hmm...
4 years of eating deer and pig which are eveywhere in the training areas. I hope you aren't right TnC!
Dutch
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Catamount
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Posted: Wed Sep 10th, 2008 09:11 pm |
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It was mentioned that the tiger had a collar on. If it didn't shuck the collar somehow, then it was probably slowly choking the tiger or causing a terrible wound that will kill it eventually. Not a good situation. Some animals go crazy when under stress like that.
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Dutch
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Posted: Wed Sep 10th, 2008 09:22 pm |
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I wasn't too worried. From what I understand, it was too young to survive. Sad case. Now the panther... They're out there still. You can find tracks if the conditions are right or an excited hunter. lol
Dutch
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Gena
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Posted: Wed Sep 10th, 2008 11:47 pm |
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Dutch,
I lived on Ft. Polk in the 90's, we were stationed there a few years. The base is perfect for bigger animals to hide for a while. I was told that at one time Alligator Lake had Alligators in it, but the military had them removed. I know one of the big concerns on base was people living in housing with vicious dogs.
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Gena
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Posted: Thu Sep 11th, 2008 12:40 am |
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Ok, it just hit me that I better add a statement as a disclaimer.
I don't have a problem with people properly owning and caring for an exotic pet. Provided they have put all safety measures in place to prevent injury to others and escape of the creature. If you're an adult and you choose to own an animal that could kill or injure you, and it does. Oh Well. I do take issue with some exotic or vicious pets around children. I wish I could post some of the pics at my office were kids have been attacked by the family's pet python.
I am also well aware pets that are not exotic can harm people. Too often we have had kids attacked by vicious dogs. My argument is about persons who get exotic pets and release them in places were they do not belong.
I hope this makes things clear. I'm sure the majority of you would have already understood, but occasionally folks misunderstand.
Gena
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Dutch
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Posted: Thu Sep 11th, 2008 07:17 am |
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I was at Fort Polk for 7 years and worked at the ER and didn't see any dog attacks that were unprovoked. Usually it was the family pet that attacked one of the kids (very upsetting). Usually involved the dog's or the kid's food.
Dutch
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grump13
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Posted: Fri Oct 31st, 2008 05:32 pm |
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| an eight foot gator was caught on the coosa river near Rome ,Ga in the ninetys the temperature was in the 20's , a few miles south , in Lake Weiss, a friend of mine saw five on a sand bar in the chattooga river, he said they were about 5 feet long, a 12 footer was killed in the Ten Tom waterway in Itawamba co. Ms . I saw a monster quest show about bull sharks and fresh water , one was caught on the Miss, River near a town in southern Illinois. this is scary , there could be some in the Tenn Tom waterway.
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oldcrow
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Posted: Mon Nov 3rd, 2008 03:50 am |
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