The Kirby family reached a quick consensus when they were told that a 6-foot gator was spotted two days earlier in the Chattahoochee River where they were playing.
"I think we'll be getting out now," said Chris Kirby, 28, of Stone Mountain, who had planned a relaxing Friday afternoon wading in the Chattahoochee's 50-degree water with his wife, 9-month-old daughter and chocolate Labrador retriever.
"That's a big enough gator to chew my leg off," Kirby said as he climbed out of the water.
Officials with the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area said they aren't pursuing the wayward reptile first spotted Wednesday by a pair of joggers off the river's bank at Cochran Shoals near the I-285 bridge.
"The gator's not bothering anyone, and it hasn't been seen since Wednesday," said the Chattahoochee's chief park ranger, Scott Pfeninger. "We're not looking for it."
"If it's spotted by several other people, we'll send people down to try to catch it," he said.
But snagging a gator in a river the size of the Hooch is no easy feat. Two years ago, an 8-foot alligator was spotted several times in the Cochran Shoals area. Efforts to trap it were unsuccessful.
Last summer, wildlife biologists with the state Department of Natural Resources spent more than a month trying to catch a smaller gator in the Flat Creek area of Lake Lanier. It was finally captured in the yard of a lakeside home.
This gator is likely headed to warmer water downstream, Pfeninger said. Alligators are common in southern Georgia, but they aren't native this far north.
The ranger said the animal shouldn't spoil anybody's fun on a weekend when the soaring temperature will making the river's refreshing water irresistible.
"It's a wild animal and should be treated as such," Pfeninger said. "But I'd still float down the river."
"We'll probably put out nine to 10 rafts (each day)," said Corey Armstrong, who rents rafts for High Country Outfitters at Cochran Shoals. Each accommodates anywhere from four to eight people.
News of the loose gator from two years ago briefly slowed business, Armstrong said. "People forgot about it pretty quick," he said.
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