12/07/2022
Doc is a large adult male American Alligator and is the third largest alligator to be incorporated into the satellite tag study. While he may not be the longest alligator in the study, he does have the largest head. At 50cm long, his head is actually several centimeters larger than Okefenokee Joe, the largest alligator in our study, who is several inches longer than Doc. Doc is a very old alligator which is evident by the worn misshapen scutes that cover his body and by his old injuries that have since healed over. He is missing part of the front left of his snout and has one snaggletooth that sticks straight out of his upper jaw. He is also missing his left eye, which may have played a role in us being able to capture him, as we approached from his blind side. Despite his old age he appears to still have some fight left in him as he growled and hissed at us as we approached him. In addition to this, we believe that he is still reproducing in his old age because of the numerous juvenile alligators that were also in Mud Lake. It remains to be seen how far his territory reaches but we imagine that it will be fairly expansive. Doc is named after two people; the first is Dr. Wilbur Hafford, the founder of the Okefenokee Swamp Park and the second is Dr. William Clark the man who brought us to the Swamp to research alligators.
To learn more about our research efforts here at the Okefenokee Swamp, meet the researchers, and learn more about alligators, visit https://okeswamp.org/alligator-research