Latest news with #GatorWise
Forbes
a day ago
- Health
- Forbes
11 Southeast States Offer Tips For People Living Among Alligators
American alligator walking along a two-lane highway in Florida. As more people are move into traditional alligator habitats, 11 Southeastern states have launched the GatorWise website with pointers about how to minimize problems while living among the dangerous reptiles. Destruction of wetland habitats where American alligators have lived is occurring throughout the Southeast due to an influx of land development due to more people living there as well as company expansions or new business locations there. 'Some states are beginning to see an uptick in nuisance alligator reports and sightings, and some of these reports are simply that an alligator exists somewhere people hadn't seen one before,' herpetologist Amanda Bryant, of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, stated in a May 27 state notice. 'Some states, like Florida, have done an excellent job of spreading awareness about alligator behavior and safety, and we wanted to work together to have a cohesive message throughout the American alligator's range.' She noted the website contains useful tips such as 'keeping an eye out before entering the water in alligator habitat and keeping your pets on a leash and away from the shoreline will go a long way in preventing alligator conflicts.' In mid-May, the educational website was unveiled to promote safety between the public and wild alligators. The states behind GatorWise are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Native Range of American Alligators. "The introduction of GatorWise is important because information about how humans should behave around alligators is similar across the southeast, but until now, each state has had to manage their own outreach sites and information,' Morgan Hart, alligator biologist, noted in a May 19 announcement by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. "We hope that being able to reference a central place for information will help people and alligators coexist safely.' The state agency explained that continued 'significant human development' is expected within American alligator habitats in southeastern states. 'Alligators are a robust species that can thrive in areas where development occurs, as long as the people in these areas understand how to responsibly coexist with them,' SCDNR added. The American alligator is a federally protected species and among North America's largest reptiles. The name alligator can be traced back to Spanish explorers who called them 'el lagarto' (the lizard). Alligators laying on the pond's edge in Hilton Head, South Carolina. While most people don't think of Tennessee as having alligators, the reptiles are appearing in confirmed sightings in the southwestern areas. 'What we're seeing are alligators naturally expanding their range into Tennessee from the southern border states,' says Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency on its website. 'The TWRA has not stocked or released any alligators in Tennessee and we would like to remind everyone that possessing or releasing alligators in Tennessee is illegal and poses safety and ecological risks. Alligators expanding into Tennessee is just another species that we must learn to coexist with.' TWRA is reminding people to refrain from feeding or harassing the alligators, which are a protected species. 'Videos have circulated recently on the internet of people poking at and interacting with alligators in Tennessee, which falls under the State of Tennessee's definition of harassing wildlife and you could be cited for any incidents of interacting with them,' TWRA says. Alicia Wassmer, wildlife biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said in May 19 press announcement that people need to learn more about living among alligators. 'As development continues to expand into once-remote areas where alligators live, we need to become GatorWise in order to safely share the land with this species,' Wassmer said. 'Urbanization is projected to increase at exponential rates in areas where alligator habitat occurs. This continuous conversion of natural spaces, coupled with a constant influx of newcomers who may not know that alligators are here or aren't familiar with alligator behavior, have amplified the need for state wildlife resource agencies to proactively connect residents and visitors with vital information on how to coexist responsibly with the alligators that live in these communities.' 'Urbanization is projected to increase at exponential rates in areas where alligator habitat occurs,' 'This continuous conversion of natural spaces, coupled with a constant influx of newcomers who may not know that alligators are here or aren't familiar with alligator behavior, have amplified the need for state wildlife resource agencies to proactively connect residents and visitors with vital information on how to coexist responsibly with the alligators that live in these communities.' American Alligator in Louisiana. The GatorWise website encourages people to learn where alligators live in the different Southeastern states since each state has different alligator ranges and habitats. Warning sign about alligators in Florida. A South Carolina factsheet by the SCDNR offers advice for what to do when attacked by a gator. 'In the rare event that you are attacked, awareness of alligator behavior may save your life. Alligators clamp down with powerful jaws, then twist and roll. If an alligator bites your arm, it may help to grab the alligator and roll with it to reduce tearing of the arm. Strike the nose of the alligator hard and often, and try to gouge the eyes. If at all possible, do not allow the alligator to pull you into the water.' Florida has 1.3 million alligators that live in all of the state's 67 counties. 'In recent years, Florida has experienced tremendous human population growth. Many residents seek waterfront homes, and increasingly participate in water-related activities. This can result in more frequent alligator-human interactions, and a greater potential for conflict,' says the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Another state with a sizeable population of American alligators is Louisiana, which is also home to about 1 million alligators. In Louisiana, alligators live mostly along the state's coastal marshes but also can be found in its canals, bayous, rivers and swamps. The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries manages American alligators as a commercial renewable natural resource by allowing wild harvesting through hunting and alligator farms where 1 million are raised. According to LDWF, Louisiana alligator farmers harvested 438,577 farm-raised alligators in 2019 valued at an estimated $86 million. Alabama's American alligators are found throughout the state. The number has grown significantly within the past 50 years to become a public nuisance in some areas and 'now cause hundreds of complaints annually from citizens concerned about public safety,' according to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Consequently, hunting is allowed annually to curb alligator populations. In Arkansas, larger concentrations of the gators tend to live in the state's southeastern and the southwestern corners in places with large shallow water marshes and swamps. The state's diminishing American alligators rebounded from being decimated due to hunting and lost habitat until restocking efforts from 1970s to early 1980s released over 2,840 American alligators from Louisiana. Greater numbers of the reptiles enable the state to provide regulated hunting. Georgia is thought to have some 250,000 of the American alligators living primarily along the Fall Line (a geological boundary between the Piedmont and Coastal Plain regions) and south of it, such as around Augustus, Columbus and Macon. 'They are found in marshes, swamps, rivers, farm ponds and lakes in the wild, but also have been found in ditches, neighborhoods, drainage canals, roadways, golf course ponds and sometimes in swimming pools,' according to an Alligator Fact Sheet from the wildlife division of Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The agency publicized the GatorWise information on its website May 29. 'As the weather warms up and people are spending more time outdoors, it's a great time to remind everyone that it is normal to see alligators moving around and basking in rivers, ponds and lakes in the southern part of the state,' said Kara Nitschke, state wildlife resources divison alligator biologist. 'Alligators are native to Georgia and are critical to the health and balance of our ecosystems, so being GatorWise means we know how to modify our behavior to minimize any potential conflict.' Mississippi has between 32,000 and 38,000 alligators. The area with the most (nearly 25%) is Jackson County, followed by Hancock County and about 408,000 acres of alligator habitat in. Both counties are at the tip of the Gulf coastline. However, people living in Rankin County are more likely to come across a gator since there. The state determines its alligator populations by counting at night eyeshine counts using lights to document how many alligator eyeballs they find, which appear as orange under the illumination. 'Night-light surveys over the last three years indicate that Rankin County has the highest alligator densities in the state, averaging 7.35 alligators per mile along survey routes, versus an average of 1.76 alligators per mile for the rest of the state. Most of the Rankin County alligator population is located in and around Ross Barnett Reservoir and in the Pearl River to Ratliff Ferry,' says the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. North Carolina's gators tend to live north of Albemarle Sound, south along the eastern coast and as far west as in Robeson County. The two southernmost coastal counties of New Hanover and Brunswick are where most of the alligator nuisance reports are coming from. The state passed a law nearly 20 years ago to deter people from feeding alligators. 'Alligators are usually shy and secretive in nature. If fed, they can lose their natural fear of humans and learn to associate people with an easy meal,' stated the North Carolina Alligator Management Plan issued in 2017 by the NCWRC. 'The perception many individuals have that every alligator is a dangerous nuisance, misconceptions about alligator behavior and biology, public unawareness that alligators exist in North Carolina, and the transient nature of human populations in some areas (e.g., military bases, vacation destinations, recreational areas) all contribute to the need for a strong and continual education and outreach program to keep the public informed.' South Carolina's alligators live in coastal marsh areas but can be found in retention pounds rivers, streams and lakes. Each year there are from 300 to 350 alligators removed and euthanized due to public safety concerns posed to people and their pets. The SCDNR does not relocate alligators because they return to their habitats. 'Alligators have a strong homing instinct. Adult alligators will attempt to return home even after they've been moved many miles, crossing anything in their way to get back, including backyards and highways,' SCDNR says. American alligators in Oklahoma live primarily in isolated areas and marshlands in the state's southeastern corner. The counties that are the home to most alligators in Oklahoma are Choctaw and McCurtain. American Alligator locations in Texas. In Texas, American alligators live in a wide swath from the tip of the state in Brownsville at the Gulf up to the entire eastern side. 'With the human population in Texas continuing to expand, increased contact between people and alligators can be expected,' noted a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department factsheet. 'Alligators naturally shy away from humans. However, problems do arise when people feed alligators because the alligator loses its fear of humans and begins to associate people with food. This produces a potentially dangerous situation. An alligator that has been frequently hand-fed will often lunge at an outstretched hand. This action is often interpreted as an 'alligator attack' when in reality the alligator has been conditioned to respond to an outstretched hand expecting to be fed. For this reason, it is wrong to feed any wild alligator.' Alligator activity. Alligators are thought to have a key role in balancing wetland ecosystems. They can live as long as 50 years in the wild and aren't generally safe from being killed by predators (except people) after they grow more than four feet long. Raccoons, bears, otters and hogs are known to eat alligator eggs in nests. Young gators can become the prey of otters, fish, raccoon, wading birds and even larger alligators. American alligators mostly stay in areas where they were hatched from eggs between two and three years before they move to find their own ranges. Their body size can be from 6 to 14 feet long. Male alligators can weigh 1,000 pounds. Their front feet have 5 toes, while the back feet have 4 webbed toes. Other unusual characteristics is they have two sets of eyelids (a vertical one human like and a horizontal transparent membrane one) and teeth that grown back. A single alligators can grow 3,000 teeth in its lifetime. Juvenile alligators can eat amphibians, insects, amphibians and small fish, while adults consume snakes, birds, turtles, rough fish, small mammals and other opportunistic prey. 'Both males and females vocalize. The male calls with a loud, throaty bellow and may hiss and inflate to impress a mate. Females bellow and grunt, too, but less loudly. Young alligators call with a high-pitched chirp,' notes the NCWRC. A recently published study by Christopher M. Murray, Tyler S. Coleman, Wray Gabel and Ken Krauss looked at the role American alligators play in wetland ecosystems as helping to regulate carbon stored in soil, which has decomposed plants. 'Results indicate that American alligator presence is positively correlated with soil carbon stock across habitats within their native distribution,' noted a U.S. Geological Service article on the study,'American Alligators (Alligator Nississippiensis) as Wetland Ecosystem Carbon Stock Regulators.' Researchers are examining links between climate change and mitigation strategies such as the use of natural carbon stored in soils. This role that alligators are thought to play in the environment is among their place as an apex predator regulating ecosystem populations in wetlands.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Alligator sightings increasing across Arkansas
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ark. – When an alligator came across Trey Moss's job at a Jefferson County cotton field, it was not the sighting that excited him but the gator's size. 'Us living down here in the south, it's just a normal day for one that's small, but you get one that big and it's just like oh my gosh, that joker is massive!' Moss said. Arkansas Game & Fish Commission joins other agencies on website for tips on living with alligators He estimated the gator he photographed on May 18 was 12 feet long. When he posted the picture online, it went viral. Moss said more people near him have been seeing more gators lately, which is no surprise to Amanda Bryant of the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission. Bryant as the AGFC's conservation herpetologist, is responsible for all the state's reptiles and amphibians. She explained that alligators were one of the inaugural endangered species in the early 1960s. Due to habitat loss and unregulated hunting, alligators were relocated to southern and central Arkansas by the thousands over a generation, building a healthy enough population to reintroduce a permitted hunting season in 2006. 'There are many, many many people in the state that didn't grow up having to be aware of alligators that didn't grow up with alligators in their backyard yard even though they would have been there 100 years before,' Bryant said. Many states have seen an increased number of nuisance calls due to alligator sightings in recent years. It is why 11 southeastern states launched The site teaches six alligator basics to educate people on how to respect and coexist with alligators. For example, don't leave food near their habitat because it can make alligators interested in humans. GatorWise is following the success of the website which 15 southeastern states launched for black bears in 2018. Bryant admitted many of the tips are consistent, but alligators are usually harder to spot and lack that cuddle factor people may associate with bears. 'People's immediate jump is there's an alligator here it must be a problem, when the alligator lives there. It's totally fine to see an alligator as long as it continues to show no interest in people it's perfectly safe. You've just got to be aware,' Bryant added. Hunting seasons have also played a part in reducing nuisance calls according to Bryant. Hunters looking to bag an alligator in The Natural State can apply for permits for public land hunts from June 15-30 each year. Alligator hunting on private property is managed through a quota system. Anyone may purchase a private land alligator hunting permit, but hunting season ends early if the quota for the alligator zone is met. Arkansas hunters bring in 181 alligators during hunting season Alligator hunting in Arkansas is open from 30 minutes after sunset until 30 minutes before sunrise during the last two weekends each September. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Georgia is gatorland too: State raises awareness about alligator population and safety
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Resources Division is encouraging residents to get 'GatorWise' as the warm weather attracts more people outside. 'It's a great time to remind everyone that it is normal to see alligators moving around and basking in rivers, ponds and lakes in the southern part of the state,' said Kara Nitschke, WRD's state alligator biologist. 'Alligators are native to Georgia and are critical to the health and balance of our ecosystems, so being GatorWise means we know how to modify our behavior to minimize any potential conflict.' Georgia is home to an estimated population of around 225,000 alligators. They're concentrated largely along and below the south fall line, which roughly connects Columbus, Macon, and Augusta. An increasing number have been spotted in Middle Georgia in recent years, especially within the Chattahoochee River The program GatorWise was developed in collaboration with multiple states to increase public information about alligators and responsible behavior around them to minimize conflict with humans. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Below are the GatorWise basics: Assume Alligators are Present: Alligators can live in any water body in their range. They are good at hiding and may be found in places where you have never seen them, especially after storms or floods. Keep your distance. Never Feed Alligators: Feeding alligators on purpose or by accident is illegal in Georgia. This is because this action can cause alligators to associate people with food and lose their natural fear of people. Don't Dispose of Fish or Food Scraps in the Water: Throwing fish scraps in the water is one of the most common ways people unintentionally feed alligators. Properly dispose of bait, fish scraps and food items. Never Harass, Capture or Handle an Alligator: Approaching, capturing or handling alligators puts you at risk. View and photograph alligators from a distance. Be Responsible for People and Pets in Your Care: Alligators do not know the difference between pets and prey. Keep pets on a leash and away from the water's edge. Supervise small children near the water. Maintain Awareness: Observe alligator warning signs. Stay away from the water if you see an alligator. Avoid swimming in areas with dense vegetation and only swim during daylight hours. Compared to Florida, there have been far fewer alligator attacks in Georgia. According to Georgia WRD, there were nine reported cases from 1980 to July 2023. Six happened because a person stepped on or otherwise made contact with a submerged alligator. The remaining three, WRD says, likely happened because an alligator mistook the person for prey. Officials stress that the animals are an important part of their ecosystems, helping to maintain prey species' populations and shape habitats. Since the gators have recovered from near extinction, hunting is allowed, but with licenses and restrictions. For more information on Alligators, population management, and hunting, visit >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Arkansas Game & Fish Commission joins other agencies on website for tips on living with alligators
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – South Arkansas has a lot of alligators and the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission has joined with other state agencies to provide tips on living with them. AGFC officials said they have joined with 11 other southeast states to provide The site is designed to foster realistic public perceptions and promote responsible human behavior. 'Gigantic' alligator spotted in Sherwood off Highway 67 near Warden Road AGFC Herpetologist Amanda Bryant says the project has been in the works for a while and has piggybacked off the success of another wildlife awareness project, 'Some states are beginning to see an uptick in nuisance alligator reports and sightings, and some of these reports are simply that an alligator exists somewhere people hadn't seen one before,' Bryant said. 'Some states, like Florida, have done an excellent job of spreading awareness about alligator behavior and safety, and we wanted to work together to have a cohesive message throughout the American alligator's range.' VIDEO: Alligator seen attacking a tire in floodwaters after Hurricane Milton AGFC officials said the American alligator is native to Arkansas. However, it was once completely removed from Arkansas due to habitat degradation, overexploitation for their skins, and misguided fear toward these keystone wetland predators. The AGFC worked with other agencies to restock alligators in their original native range in 1970-71, and the species has remained stable since then. The population is healthy enough to support a popular hunting season each year in June. Arkansas hunters bring in 181 alligators during hunting season As warm weather returns, GatorWise and AGFC officials remind Arkansans that it is normal to see alligators moving around and basking in rivers, ponds and lakes. Alligators are native to Arkansas and play a critical role in the health and balance of our ecosystems. 'If there is an alligator that is in an area where it creates a hazard, we do have resources to relocate the animal, thanks to the USDA APHIS Wildlife Services Department. Those alligators can be reported by calling 822-245-0315,' Bryant said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
SCDNR launches ‘GatorWise' project
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources wants you to stay 'GatorWise' this summer. The agency announced Monday the release of its alligator information project, called GatorWise, which aims to promote guidance on how to act when coming into contact with an alligator. The main goal is to minimize conflict between humans and alligators. Biologists say the program is important because it will offer a central place for states in the southeast to reference information about alligator safety, especially as human development grows in alligator habitats. 'The introduction of GatorWise is important because information about how humans should behave around alligators is similar across the southeast, but until now, each state has had to manage their own outreach sites and information,' said Morgan Hart, SCDNR Alligator Biologist. 'We hope that being able to reference a central place for information will help people and alligators coexist safely'. SCDNR said alligators are a robust species that can thrive in areas where development occurs, as long as the people in these areas understand how to responsibly coexist with them. With the weather warning, the agency said it's important for people to remember that it is normal to see alligators moving around and basking in rivers, ponds and lakes. You can learn more by visiting Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
