News
Possible gator spotted in Hickory
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Published: May 14, 2008
HICKORY
The next time you go to Lake Hickory, you might want to look before jumping in the water.
Jenny Childers, 29, of Hildebran, was visiting her grandparents, Jerry and Juanita Sharpe, for a family gathering on Mother's Day Sunday. The Sharpes live on Lake Hickory, so Childers' brother-in-law, Clinton Childers, and his cousin decided to go fishing off the family dock. When the pair started yelling about an alligator swimming in the lake, Childers thought they had mistaken a stick for a reptile.
"But then we could see it moving, and we could see its back and tail and all four of its legs moving under the water," she said.
The only strange thing about the creature was it was smaller than most alligators, about 2 1/2 to 3 feet long, Childers said.
Never without her camera, Childers began snapping images of the reptile as it swam around the dock.
When her husband, Jesse, called the N.C. Department of Wildlife to report the sighting, Childers said the person who answered the telephone told them they didn't want to bother the creature because it was in its natural habitat. Alligators are native to North Carolina, but mostly are found in the eastern part of the state in swamps and marshes.
"I thought, 'That's where I swim and ski.' That didn't make me feel too good to think it's an alligator's natural habitat," Childers said.
Agents with the Department of Wildlife came to the lake to investigate, but were unable to find an alligator, said Agent Michael Juhan. Juhan said he wasn't sure the Childers saw an alligator at all. They may have seen a cousin of the alligator.
"It may have been a caiman, which is not unusual for people to have as an exotic pet before releasing it into the wild," Juhan said. While caimans are not native to this area, they have been captured in North Carolina. In July 2006, when a creature appearing to be a small alligator was spotted in the French Broad River in Brevard in Transylvania County, biologists at Brevard College said the animal was a caiman.
Juhan said he would rather not discuss the reptile in Lake Hickory until he found out more information about the animal.
"I don't want to comment on it until we know what it is," he said.
Whatever it is, Childers said it seemed to be watching her as much as she was watching it.
"I looked at it through some binoculars and I could see its eyes. It was like it was looking right at us thinking, 'Come on in,'" she said.
The experience made her change her thinking about her 2-year-old daughter, Ava, enjoying summers at grandma and grandpa's house.
"We'll be in the water, but we'll be on a boat," she said.
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N.C. Politics
Federal Politics
The Downtown Summer Music Series will begin on Thursday. Ed Bumgardner talks to some of the organizers of the Downtown Jazz lineup, in which a form of music known as "smooth jazz" will play a more prominent role this year.
Thursday's relish stories will appear in the Entertainment section.
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