Okefenokee gator feeding frenzy caught on tape

By Mike Morris

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A south Georgia fisherman earlier this month caught a lot more than fish on his camera when he recorded hundreds of alligators in a rare "feeding frenzy" in the Okefenokee Swamp.

Ray Cason, of Homerville, was fishing in Stephen C. Foster State Park near Fargo on July 10 and 11 when he happened up on the gator gathering.

"It was unreal," Cason told The Clinch County News. "There were 10-foot gators with their entire bodies three feet above the water. Gators rolling all over themselves."

"I bet there were 300 gators I saw in that boat basin and canal," he told the newspaper.

Cason sent a copy of his video to Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge officials, who called the phenomenon "cooperative feeding."

"I saw the video, but haven't seen it (cooperative feeding) before myself," Refuge Biologist Sarah Aicher told The Clinch County News.

"The alligators somehow get a signal and congregate and feed," she said. "It's a mystery how they do that."