ECOVIEWS
PEOPLE CONTINUE TO ASK ABOUT ALLIGATORS (5-20-2001)
Alligators are clearly an important animal for us to have around. I say this because of the seemingly never-ending questions people ask about them. Following are some recent ones.
Q - I have not been able to find the answer to my grandson's question--can alligators jump, as over a fence? I thought I heard once that they could. Could you answer this one for us, please?
A - Alligators cannot jump over fences, but I have seen alligators up to six feet long climb over both chicken wire and chain-link fences. I'm not sure how high they might climb to get over a fence, but certainly several feet.
Q - I am moving from Connecticut to Charlotte, North Carolina, and was wondering if alligators come as far north as Charlotte. I understand that on the coast they go almost to the Virginia border, but in all my Web searching, I cannot find where their northern inland limit is.
A - Historically, alligators were found naturally in the Carolinas as far inland as the Fall Line, which for North Carolina means mostly coastal and inland for a few miles. They actually range north of Charlotte on the coast, but do not go inland far enough to reach the Charlotte area. In the Mississippi Valley they go into northern Mississippi and Arkansas. They are also found in the southeast corner of Oklahoma and the southern parts of all the Gulf Coast states, including all of Louisiana.
One factor that confuses the geographic range issue with alligators and many other animals and plants is that people introduce them to areas far outside their natural range. The recent sighting of an alligator in a reservoir in central North Carolina and reports of alligators in even more northerly locations are a consequence of such introductions. Although alligators are unlikely to survive the winters in many northern localities, an introduced individual may persist through the summer and hence be perceived as being native to the region.
Q. - How fast can an alligator move on land? (In one form or another, this is one of the most frequently asked questions about alligators.)
A. - Alligators can run about as fast as a person for a few feet out of the water, but they are unable to sustain the speed for very long. The only alligators I have ever encountered that chased me were irate females that were guarding a nest or that had babies they were protecting. I have always been able to outrun such females and believe that their intent is not to catch an intruder but simply to scare it away. A huge, hissing reptile charging with an open mouth and big teeth works very well for this purpose.
Q. - How big do alligators get? (This is another frequently asked question.)
A. Adult female alligators characteristically are 6 to 9 feet in length, whereas males commonly attain lengths of about 12 feet and can weigh more than 500 pounds. The largest size ever reported for an alligator was slightly over 19 feet. The gator was from Louisiana and the person who measured it was E. A. McIlhenny, the same person who created Tabasco sauce. McIlhenny also reported specimens from 15 to 18 feet long, but the majority of large alligators noted by him were 10 to 12 feet, the normal maximum size seen today. Exceedingly large alligators, above 14 feet, appear to be rare or absent in today's world. In fact, a scientific study recently concluded that no alligator has ever reached a length of 15 feet.
Is the absence of the giants reported from yesteryear a consequence of the elimination of most older, larger individuals during the early part of the century? Or were the extreme sizes reported in the past a result of unintentional misreporting or mismeasurement? Whatever the true maximum size ever attained by an alligator may be, 12- to 13-foot individuals weighing more than a quarter of a ton are around today.
A fact sheet about alligators can be found at http://www.parcplace.org/education/educational_materialsposters.htm
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