Fort Worth Star Telegram

Posted on Tue, Jun. 28, 2005

Don't bother them, and they won't bother us
By Bud Kennedy
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Just in time for summer, the Lake Worth Monster is back.

But this one's real.

An alligator 6 feet long, maybe longer, has been seen several times this month sunning himself in a cove south of the Jacksboro Highway bridge. One lakefront resident says he has seen another gator 10 feet long.

So for the first time in 60 years of mysterious creature sightings -- blamed until now on the overconsumption of other murky waters -- Fort Worth officials will post warning signs:

"Do Not Feed the Alligators."

That should warn everyone once and for all that yes, there really are alligators in Lake Worth and no, nobody is shooing them away.

"They are native to the Trinity River, but we just don't see them very often," said Suzanne Tuttle, manager of the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge nearby. A 5-foot-long alligator was photographed there last year, the largest of about a dozen seen in the refuge in the last 20 years.

"They are moving around the lake looking for another place to live," she said.

Fort Worth parks officials will team up with the city Water Department to launch a public-education campaign with signs and handouts warning swimmers, boaters and lakefront residents, Tuttle said.

Texas game wardens say not to bother the alligators unless they bother us. They won't, unless somebody starts feeding one. So don't.

Homeowner John Malone lives on the cove just south of the east end of the bridge. He said his family and his Lotus Trail neighbors saw three alligators 10, 6 and 4 feet long near his boat dock early this month. The 6-footer has been seen as recently as last week, and Malone's daughter caught it on video.

A police captain in the suburban city of Lake Worth was also quoted in the Northwest Times-Record weekly newspaper saying he saw an alligator 6 feet long.

Malone also said a couple of his cat's kittens are missing.

A Lake Worth police spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the lakefront land and gators belong to Fort Worth.

A Fort Worth lake-patrol officer, W. Fox, said that he has worked on the lake off and on for 10 years and that it has always been home to a few well-hidden alligators.

"They were probably here in the river before the lake was ever built," he said. "This is just the first time they've been seen around a boat dock."

The legendary Lake Worth Monster was a 6-foot-9 "goat man" who frightened picnickers on Greer Island in the summer of 1969. He turned out to be the work of teen-age pranksters.

As far back as 1948, witnesses reported a "sea monster" with shiny eyes, a snout and spikes down its back.

One account of that incident recently published in the Star-Telegram called it a promotional stunt for a boat works at now-gone Casino Beach.

At her family's funeral home on Jacksboro Highway above the cove, Maxine Biggers said she's lived and worked on the lake 47 years.

"I have never seen a crocodile, and I don't know anybody who has ever seen one!" she said, laughing over the phone.

"If there's a crocodile down there, he's 20 feet down a rock wall from our parking lot. He is not coming up here to our place. And I'm not going down there to look!"

She's safer down there than driving on Jacksboro Highway.

Great,
I used to kayak out there. Not anymore.

You know, it will probably take an alligator attack to get the authorities attention. Why don't they trap them and move them?

When I fished in LA there were plenty of gators out there and never heard of an attack. They aren�t aggressive unless you get near a nest and if you are in a boat chances are you won�t be. Even if you are on shore you will more than likely never encounter one. They generally don�t like to be near people.

They have a right to be in the lakes. They are part of the ecosystem and it is a good sign that they are showing back up in places. It means that the conservation that us sportsmen pay for by purchasing licenses and sporting goods is working. I for one am glad to hear they are back.

ScottB

Kids and pets make pretty tempting prey for gators, especially ten footers and bigger.

They are in lake Worth??? Sounds like the begining of the movie "Alagator" where it gets exposed to toxic waste and mutates to become a giant.

its already ten foot, how much bigger does it have to get to be called a giant???

I see them just about every time I go fishing down here in Victoria. If you don't bother them, they won't bother you. You can also catch them on a large top water. Talk about a fight.

Just be sure to not land him.

We had one follow a friend last year at Dam B below Rayburn. Luckily they were close enough to get to shore. It went under twice and was closing the gap quick. It was about 6 foot. Made me think twice about sleeping outside. Seemed like there were more there the last few years. The years before camping there we never seen any. I have seen quite a few on the north end of Conroe now also.

Gators, Mountain Lions, and Polar Bears are animals that will eat people just because they are hungry.

I'm all for conservation, but I don't want any of them around my neighborhood.

I don't know how many gators I have seen at Hawkins and Rayburn. Never had a gator do anything other than head the other way when we were fishing. There is probably a much better chance to get bit by a poisonious snake out there than have any sort of dangerous encounter with those gators. Personally I wish they would start putting gators in all my favorite fishing lakes then maybe the jet skiers would stay away.

heck - as fast as the illeagals catch undersized fish and keep them out of lake worth and marine creek- that darn gator dont stand a chance. Will be havin gator tail!! PS... dont forget to invite me!! hehe.

I'm down here in Florida and there are gators everywhere, the only ones you have to worry about are the ones that have gotten used to getting a free handout all the time.

I wish they would transplant a bunch of alligators into lewisville lake maybe it would thin out the jet skiers!!!