THE TIMES (Gainesville, Georgia) 20 July 07 Gators unlikely in lake (Stephen Gurr)
Owners of small pets on Lake Lanier can relax. Reports of alligators roaming the shores have not been confirmed.
At least one Internet forum was abuzz this month with word of possible gator sightings in the Aqualand and Old Federal Park areas of the lake.
But while not impossible, the presence of the big reptiles in a man-made lake so far north of their natural habitat is highly unlikely, wildlife officials say. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources generally gets at least one alligator call a year for Lake Lanier, but so far has never been able to confirm a sighting.
"We do get calls from time to time," said Scott Frazier, a DNR wildlife biologist. "It's a large body of water accessed by tens of thousands of people. There could potentially be an alligator that somebody dumped in there. We take it seriously in that regard."
DNR officials earlier this month went to a boat dock at Aqualand Marina to investigate a call from boaters who thought they saw a gator. But a whole, raw chicken used as bait didn't attract as much as a nibble in two days. Frazier said he would expect an alligator to be spotted on the shore, since they spend much of their time basking in the sun.
"No one had ever seen this animal out of the water, which is a little bit suspect," he said.
Frazier said people could be seeing the alligator gar -- a sharp-finned fish with gator-like teeth that can grow to four feet or longer in length. The gator gar will raise its head above the water's surface to take in oxygen, said Ken Sturdivant, an outdoors writer and veteran fisherman of Lake Lanier.
"In all honesty, if you've never seen a real alligator, it could look to you very much like an alligator," Sturdivant said. "That's not a fish you want to mess with."
Wendy Paradis, who lives just across the lake from Old Federal Park, grew concerned after hearing of a recent alligator siting. Her grandchildren, ages 3 and 6, often swim in the shallow waters off her dock.
"If one came over by my dock, I would really panic," she said.
Frazier said if alligators were introduced into the lake by humans, they would have a hard time surviving through winter and would likely grow slowly.
"With a lake the size of Lanier, they could survive, but it's unlikely they would thrive," he said.
Frazier noted there's never been an incident on the lake involving a predator attack. The water snakes that live there are harmless, he said.
Sturdivant said in 50 years on Lake Lanier, he has never seen or even heard of an alligator in the lake. He has heard the rumors of piranha, which were actually a harmless South American relative of the fish called the pacu.
"There's nothing in the lake that would pose a danger to human beings, except a Jet Ski, maybe," Sturdivant said.
Gators unlikely in lake