COMMERCIAL APPEAL (Memphis, Tennessee) 19 July 07 Appetite is gator's undoing - Prowling big reptile found in Ark. Lake (Bryan Brasher)
One afternoon this month -- just as he's done every day for about five years -- Ford Mahan took his dogs for a swim at 10-acre Crystal Lake near Marianna, Ark.
As the dogs splashed around in the water, Mahan noticed what he thought was a log floating toward them.
Trouble was, the wind was blowing one direction and the log was moving in another.
The "log" was an alligator -- a gigantic one that wanted to make a meal out of Mahan's pets.
"I'm stingy. I've only got six dogs," said Mahan, chuckling. "They're all road dogs. I picked up them all up off the road and gave them a home. So when I saw that thing in the same water where they had been swimming, it was a little bothersome to me."
Mahan gathered his dogs into his truck and contacted wildlife officials at the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission. Trappers were dispatched with intentions of catching and relocating the giant reptile.
The animal's size -- 11 feet, 4 inches and more than 400 pounds -- made that unfeasible.
"They finally just had to shoot it because it was so big," Mahan said. "My father built that lake back in the 1940s, and none of us have ever seen an alligator there before. I just never would have believed that something like that could have been out there."
Gators were once a rare sight in the Natural State. But today, they have become so common that Arkansas will hold its first alligator hunting seasons this fall.
The first season will be Sept. 21-24, with a second round of hunts set for Sept. 28-Oct. 1. Hunting will be allowed by permit only.
Though Mahan's gator was indeed a monster specimen, AGFC officials said larger gators have been found in the state -- up to 13 feet long and 800 pounds.
Mahan hopes none of those larger critters are patrolling his lake.
"I've been taking my dogs to Bear Creek Lake for the past few days," Mahan said. "I've always heard alligators love to eat dogs. The last thing I want to see is an alligator swimming away with one of my dogs in its mouth."
Appetite is gator's undoing