iStockphoto / Madeline Rohman
Who needs all of those expensive dinosaur documentaries imagining what life was like in prehistoric times when we have clips like this one below showing more alligators than the eyes can count swimming upriver in the Okefenokee Swamp sitting on the Florida-Georgia border?
It’s been many moons since I’ve last been to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, not since camping trips there as a kid in the Boy Scouts. I definitely still remember seeing alligators all over during those camping trips but nothing like this clip below that was shared by Matt Devitt of WINK News in Fort Myers, Florida who shared this video from someone named ‘Marty W.’
Watch this 30-second clip five times and you’ll still be spotting new Okefenokee alligators you didn’t realize were there before:
WOW! Check out all the gators in the Okefenokee Swamp near the #Florida / Georgia line. Nope! Credit: Marty W 🐊😳 @WINKNews pic.twitter.com/AtzZZbWX2W
— Matt Devitt (@MattDevittWX) July 17, 2024
If that video from X, formerly known as Twitter, didn’t load then perhaps this one from Facebook will be better:
To anyone seeing this and thinking it’s time to build a wall around the Okefenokee Swamp alligators to keep them locked in then (1) I don’t completely disagree because keeping these animals preserved from the outside world (and not the other way around) would be great but (2) it’s already a National Wildlife Refuge and it’s not as if there’s any concern of a congregation of alligators like this showing up in your backyard.
And for anyone out there who wants to take an Okefenokee Swamp tour and see alligators like this, you’re in luck because this happens semi-frequently. A similar clip was filmed 13 years ago from what appears to be a similar location:
While that might look like some people’s worst nightmare it’s an ecologist’s dream because it shows the alligator population in the Okefenokee Swamp which straddles the Florida-Georgia border is thriving. According to the River Basin Center, there are actually an estimated 10,000 to 13,000 alligators in the swamp. Let that sink in for a moment.