POST AND COURIER (Charleston, S Carolina) 16 January 06 Tracking 'Alligatorzilla' - Gator is huge - and possibly bashful (Chris Dixon)
Why can't you find Alligatorzilla when you need him?
That was the question on Chris Crolley's mind as he tramped through an alligator-infested pond on Bull's Island, armed with a tape measure, a pair of waders and a heaping helping of courage.
A few weeks back, while leading a birdwatching expedition on this very pond at the island's north end, the captain of the Bull Island Ferry pointed out a truly enormous alligator on a far bank. When asked the creature's size, Crolley responded that "Alligators aren't supposed to get that big," and estimated that it might be longer than 20 feet.
When his comment appeared in a Jan. 2 Post and Courier article about the migratory waterfowl wintering at Bull's Island, several vigilant readers noted that this would make the gator not only a state record, but a national one. Such a possibility prompted another trip with Crolley.
"In the last 13 or 14 years I've been paddling kayaks into places other people can't get in, and going places that maybe people shouldn't go," Crolley drawled while driving to the huge freshwater impoundment dubbed "Alligator Alley."
"As far as the biggest gators I've seen - there was one in the upper reaches of Sparkleberry Swamp. I swore he was a tree until he moved. But the largest one I've ever seen - it's the one out here."
On his trips into the southern boundaries of the Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge, Crolley typically points out that Bull's Island's 5,000 acres are among the most pristine places in America. This makes for an excellent place for a gator to grow undisturbed and unnoticed. He says that an alligator count he attended a few years back with the state Department of Natural Resources Alligator Project Supervisor Walt Rhodes found a likely population of 800 to 1,000 alligators inhabiting the forests, marshes and swamps. This would give Bull's Island one of the highest such population densities of any place north of Florida.
"These estuaries have been untouched from prehistoric times," he said. "You leave an alligator to grow in its thriving natural habitat, they will get as large as they can get."
The largest alligators Rhodes said he has seen in state waters were 12- to 13-footers in the waters around Sparkleberry Swamp near Lake Marion, the inland freshwater impoundments of the Santee River Delta and the Donnelly Wildlife Management Area of the ACE Basin. The largest gator ever recorded in the state was a 13-foot, 1-inch monster that a poacher shot in Sparkleberry Swamp. His stuffed remains are the property of the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia.
Yet even this gator is dwarfed by the American record, a 19-foot, 2-inch beast shot in Louisiana. Alligators can live more than 50 years.
Rhodes was sent a photograph and a grainy video of Alligatorzilla. While the reptile was surely not 20 feet long, Rhodes agreed it was a huge bull gator that could be a state record. When an alligator gets longer than 10 feet, its body gains girth dramatically. This could be part of the reason for the overestimation of its size. "A 10-footer," he said, "will weigh 350 to 400 pounds. But 12-footers can weigh close to 800."
Crolley had been hopeful that this January day might be excellent for a sighting, but the day was so warm that far fewer reptiles sunned themselves along Alligator Alley than they had a few weeks back.
When Crolley reached the freshwater pond where his quarry was last sighted,
Alligatorzilla was nowhere to be seen. So the brave naturalist waded to the exact spot where the big guy had been filmed a few weeks earlier.
Running his tape measure from the edge of the water, where about a third of the gator's tail had appeared to still be submerged in the water, to where video appeared to show the gator's head, Crolley measured between 11 and 12 feet. He then planted a four-foot-long stick for future measurements and high-tailed it out of there.
"One thing I realize," he said back on high ground, "is that the four-foot stick
looks longer than four feet from here."
"But," he continued, "I've always felt really valid and confident saying that, if that's not the biggest gator on Bull Island, it's certainly the biggest one I've ever seen on Bull Island."
If you go
Walt Rhodes, supervisor of the Alligator Project for the state Department of Natural Resources, says the best time to visit Bull's Island to try to spot Alligatorzilla would be a day when the air is chilly and the sun bright.
To line up a trip, call 884-7684 or visit www.coastalexpeditions.com.
Tracking 'Alligatorzilla' - Gator is huge - and possibly bashful