Leave the gators alone. Photos on Facebook draw game wardens’ attention in Fort Worth

The Great Alligator Panic on local lakes reached a fever pitch this year, and it may get expensive for one hunter.

State game wardens have confirmed they are investigating whether an 11-foot alligator was killed unlawfully this month in one of several crazy gator photos supposedly posted to Facebook from Lake Worth or Eagle Mountain Lake.

A spokeswoman for Texas Parks & Wildlife declined further comment. But game wardens normally investigate whether an alligator was hunted illegally on public property and whether it was properly tagged and reported.

The most widely published local gator photo on Facebook is definitely real.

Visitor Jimmy Martin’s photo shows one of the big, fat granddaddy alligators at the Fort Worth Nature Center, living the good life, sunning on the boardwalk at the nature preserve.

Look, alligators have lived in the Trinity River for centuries. This isn’t Florida, but news reports of gators in the Trinity go back as far as the early days of Fort Worth.

Here is the No. 1 rule:

Leave the gators alone.

If you see a big gator, that’s good news.

He’s like the bouncer in a nightclub. He controls the population by eating the smaller ones.

In 2012, two fishermen were ticketed and fined $5,300 in restitution for killing an 11-foot alligator on public property in the river off Ten Mile Bridge Road just outside the Nature Center.

The next year, the gator population boomed, said Rob Denkhaus, manager of the 3,600-acre city wildlife sanctuary.

“Suddenly we saw lots and lots of little gators,” Denkhaus said. “If you kill off the big gators, then you’ll have more gators.”

Gator sightings in the Trinity go back to the founding of the fort, Denkhaus said.

Records show that scouts for U.S. Army Brevet Maj. Ripley Arnold, the city founder, pulled a 14-footer from beneath what is now the downtown bluff.

In 1920, the Star-Telegram headlined a catch at Lake Worth: “First Alligator Is Caught at Lake!”

In recent years, the sightings have become so common that a city website warns about “high water and swift currents” sweeping gators into Lake Worth, and an occasional gator wanders to Eagle Mountain.

The official city advice is simple:

▪ Don’t feed the gators. (Just like you wouldn’t feed bears.)

▪ Don’t throw food or fish scraps into the water.

▪ Never swim at night.

In Florida, wildlife officials also warn residents to keep small children close by and have small pets on a leash and at least 10 feet from the water.

“Watch your kids and watch your pets,” Denkhaus said.

“But these folks who get concerned about water skiing — look, the gators are not going to mess with somebody from a speedboat. They’re a natural part of the ecosystem. When you explain that, most people understand that seeing one is not that big of a deal.”

It’s legal in Texas for licensed hunters to take one alligator each year in April, May or June, but only on private property. The gator must be tagged and reported immediately to state wildlife officials.

Houston gator hunter Chris Stephens is commissioned by the state to trap alligators if one is threatening and needs to be removed.

A few years ago, he helped trap and rescue “Hollywood,” an elderly, blind gator that wandered along the Trinity near the courthouse bluff and became the center of media attention.

But Stephens hasn’t been as busy lately.

“People are learning to live with gators,” he said by phone. “Used to be, when a gator showed up in a neighborhood people would freak out. Now when people see one, they name him something like Sam and he goes everywhere. People just spread the word to not feed it.”

The alligator population is growing in Tarrant County and in the Lewisville Lake area in Denton County, he said.

“Y’all’s population is going to get bigger and bigger every year,” he said.

Get used to gators.