Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 21st, 2009
Source: Atlanta, Georgia, The Atlanta Constitution, February 25, 1910.
Thanks to Theo Paijmans.
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Actually, Athens, GA, lies near the border of the alligator range map at wikipedia. But given that the #1 rival of the University of Georgia is the Florida Gators, the possibility of some sort of student prank has to be considered, too.
Athens is just a little bit outside the range, but alligators, particularly males during mating season have been known to range long distances. Fluctuating weather conditions also tend to make them move around. So this probably was a wild gator.
In Arkansas, alligators have been found within 30 miles of the Missouri border. Not common, but it has happened. A few obscure sources claim that historically, alligators occasionally turned up in southern Illinois, but that has been hard to verify. Sometimes I think the accounts are getting the crocodilian mixed up with alligator gar or the alligator snapping turtle. Alligators appear to be creeping back into the Dismal Swamp of Virginia after an absence of maybe 200 years. So, they are pretty mobile animals.
One of my best friends is native to Oklahoma. His Grandfather is also an Oklahoma native and he’s told me stories of finding wild gators there in ponds and rivers. They may have been released pets, but it seems to me people often underestimate the range of many species. A gator found in Athens doesn’t really sound surprising to me.
Either way it’s a neat old story.
Alligators are actually native to southeast Oklahoma, although they have been absent or extremely for much of the past century. With added legal protection there is evidence that they are moving further up the Red River valley and some its tributary streams, reoccupying former habitat. There has been some expansion in Texas with alligators showing up in man made stock ponds and small lakes in the central part of the state. Formerly they were restricted to the eastern part of the state, obviously because there was more water there.