Informed by a persistent killjoy that a six-foot gator was seen two days earlier in the same part of the Chattahoochee River, the Kirby family reached a quick consensus.
“I think we’ll be getting out now,” said Chris Kirby, 28, of Stone Mountain, who had planned a relaxing Friday afternoon wading in the Chattahoochee’s 50-degree waters with his wife, 9-month old daughter and chocolate labador.
News of the gator — spotted Wednesday by a pair of joggers off the river’s bank at Cochran Shoals near the I-285 bridge —- altered their plans.
“That’s a big enough gator to chew my leg off,” said Kirby as he climbed out of the water.
Officials with the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area said they aren’t pursuing the wayward reptile which, while common in south Georgia, isn’t native to the northern part of the state.
“The gator’s not bothering anyone and it hasn’t been seen since Wednesday,” said the Chattahoochee’s chief park ranger Scott Pfeninger. “We’re not looking for it.”
Pfeninger said the park service is consulting with the state Department of Natural Resources but is currently in a “holding pattern.”
“If it’s spotted by several other people we’ll send people down to try to catch it,” he said.
But snagging a gator in a 48 mile river is no easy feat.
Two years ago, an 8-foot alligator was spotted several times in the Cochran Shoals’ area.
Efforts to trap it were unsuccessful. Last summer, wildlife biologists with the state DNR spent more than a month trying to catch a smaller gator in the Flat Creek area of Lake Lanier. It was finally captured in the yard of a lakeside home.
This gator is likely headed to warmer water downstream, Pfeninger said.
“It’s a wild animal and should be treated as such,” the ranger said. “But I’d still float down the river.”
Plenty of folks are likely to follow his advice this weekend, with temperatures expected to hover near 100 degrees.
“We’ll probably put out nine to 10 rafts (each day),” said Corey Armstrong, who rents rafts for High Country Outfitters at Cochran Shoals. Each accommodates anywhere from four to eight people.
News of the loose gator from two years ago briefly slowed business, Armstrong said. “People forgot about it pretty quick,” he said.
Rafting with three friends Friday afternoon, Garrett Euler, 22, said an alligator was the least of his concerns.
“There’s things in that river that will hurt you more than a gator,” Euler said, referring to E. coli counts. The latest count by the park service actually indicates a low risk of getting sick, with the river’s water in full compliance with recreation quality criteria.
Labels: alligator, Chattahoochee River, gator
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 9:17 AM
