An image has been circulating showing a giant alligator hanging from a crane, as a person in uniform walks behind it. But according to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (as quoted in the
Texarkana Gazette), the image is fake:
"It's fake. It didn't happen. We don't just go out and kill alligators just because they are there. I don't know why anyone would perpetuate something like that," he said. "There is a lot that comes across the Internet that is fabricated," said Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Lt. Don Albright...
According to the photograph's accompanying text, Evening Shade, Ark., residents Charles and Anita Rogers, who may or may not exist, said they could hear "bellowing" during the evening hours. According to the story, their neighbors attributed the alleged noise to a giant alligator they saw in the pond that runs behind their home.
"I didn't believe it," Charles Rogers said in the story.
Albright said the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has detained large alligators in the past like the one seen in the picture. However, he said the organization has a policy to protect the alligators rather than shooting them, hanging their remains from a suspended crane and taking pictures of their trophy.
But how exactly is it fake? That's not clear to me. Is it the caption that's fake? Or has the image been photoshopped?
Snopes suspects the image is genuine, but has the incident occurring in Texas.
Comments
Gator done
Joe Goff, a game warden with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, walks past a 13-foot, 1-inch alligator that he shot and killed in the back yard of a home in the Bar X Ranch on FM 521 near West Columbia.
Published April 16, 2005
Photo by Val Horvath
Since then there has been another one in my little hometown - we are moving back there next week!
Now there is another gator story there...
Gator raises stir in Jones Creek
By John Lowman
The Facts
Published May 15, 2007
JONES CREEK
You can still look it up at http://www.thefacts.com/story.lasso?ewcd=86dd3c1ea51fe00d
Front page of our local paper in 2005.
Re: Brazos Bend State Park
One of the best spots in Texas to photograph the alligators is probably the 2000 hectares Brazos Bend State Park, managed by Texas Parks & Wildlife. It is the best example of prime inland habitat in Texas and one of the best examples in the entire United States as well. It is very different from other coastal and inland sites in that a large number of alligators exist in a single locality where several bodies of water are in close proximity to each other and are interspersed by trails. This is significant in terms of viewing alligators without disturbing them with a noisy airboat engine.
(Someone has too much time on his hands!)
There are TWO 13-foot gators pictured.
Live gator is from 2004 :
http://www.fws.gov/southeast/news/2004/r04-073.html
Dead gator is from 2005:
http://www.thefacts.com/story.lasso?ewcd=86dd3c1ea51fe00d
http://www.snopes.com says TRUE.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/wcgator.asp
This is THEIR home, too. They were here FIRST. Like it or not. Just as there are coyotes in San Marino Calif. Just as there are grizzlies in Alaska. There are wolves and foxes around, too. Wild animals DO exist, like it or not. They are common at 12-14 ft. long. There have been several killed IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. Timbercreek area of Lake Jackson Texas. The biggest one was 11 ft long right down the street. They are common here. We killed a copperhead snake in our yard in April. We killed a Prairie rattlesnake in June - NOT usually in this area. And we tried to kill a coral snake here in our yard in July, but it got away. They are very deadly, as poisonous as a cobra.
That is what it is like, in a swamp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetheart_(crocodile)
Anyways I think its sad they kill them they have been around long time...
Bye from Australia..
Kiera
This Subdivision has several canals running all through it, Many, Many Alligators, and they are not afraid of humans. It was only a matter of time until this alligator finished off all of our pets and moved on to our children.
I appreicate the aspect of having wild animals around (at Bar X Ranch, there are Thousands of white tail deer) But when it comes to the safety of our children, I believe this is a necessary evil.
People can believe as they want, but this picture is real.
If you care protest and send money to animal shelter so we can all save animal i love animal and i know you guys and girls so help me i care if you send money reply on here and put i sent money i care to hope we save animals pick up trash around ponds that will save lots of animals help plese i'm counting on you you by yourself can make a diffrence oh and recyle help animals
Love,
Tamara Nicole Ellis,
Sorry to rain on the parade, but I'm glad they got to it before it got to a person. Say they wouldn't have killed it-would you have gotten on to the alligator for the killing the deer? We musn't endanger deer!
2 men charged with killing 600-pound gator
The reptile was popular with visitors at the Armand Bayou Nature Center
By ALLAN TURNER
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 31, 2009, 9:43PM
A day of hunting wild pigs turned sour for two Pasadena men after they caught
http://thefacts.com/story.lasso?ewcd=83855b74c795fc57
It was too large to haul off, 13 ft long, so had to be killed.
Game wardens forced to shoot alligator
By Michael Wright
The Facts
Published April 16, 2005
WEST COLUMBIA
The Rogerses are glad the reptile is gone, but they don
Gators have thin noses.
The uniform looks like Northern Territory Australia police.
Salt water crocs are *MUCH* more agressive then gators.
Guess you've never seen a croc 😛
Secondly, there's only two things that make me believe that photo has been shopped... One being the tail, which is almost fully curved and erect. If this gator is dead or even sleeping, the tail would not be so tense, it would at least be touching the ground in ANY circumstance. And aside from that, why isn't the officer's shadow casting onto the tail? It's obviously casting below it.
And the rope. It loops through the gator's mouth and is hanging freely below it. However, the tassle at the end of the rope is not pointing toward the ground, it's slanted as if it were swinging, but nothing else in the photo is.
Besides, the head's too big.
'Later, alligator'
When reptiles venture into populated areas, officials urge you to just back away
By AMANDA CASANOVA
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
June 18, 2010, 12:09AM
For the most part, encounters between alligators and humans are harmless. Already this season in Harris County, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has logged more than 25 calls for nuisance alligators, two of them within the past week, and all have ended amicably