JACKSON COUNTY, Ga. — A Jackson County man told Channel 2 Action News he came face-to-face with a four- to six-foot alligator, spotted along State Highway 330.
Dennis Meeler said he wanted to get a very good look: "I could have reached out and touched it. That's how close I was."
"I worry about children, and I worry about pets, especially with it being near the Dollar General store,” Sheriff Janis Mangum said.
One of her deputies was called out to the scene and took some pictures.
"I don't know a lot about alligators, but I don't want to be around them up close,” Mangum said.
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"There's a school up the street. There's a church up the street,” neighbor April Bruns said.
Bruns has seen one before. She used to live in Florida.
"Yeah, crossing the roads and everything. But here in Jackson County? In the country? No,” Bruns said.
Mangum said there’s actually a pond around in the area called Alligator Lake.
Some years back, there was one in it. Two years ago, a gator was spotted in Flat Creek in Fayette County.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources said there are up to 250,000 of them in south Georgia.
Meeler doesn’t care how it got here. He just hopes it moves on.
"He was hissing. That's his way of saying that’s close enough,” Meeler said.
The state does allow licensed trappers to catch gators like the one Meeler saw, because it’s more than four feet long and far outside the normal range for these reptiles. So far, there is no word on any effort to trap it.