Alligator breeding season underway at Savannah National Wildlife Refuge

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - The Savannah National Wildlife Refuge this time of year is all business for alligators.

“You hear a big alligator bellowing and you’re wondering if a dinosaur is nearby,” said Wayne Harris, a biologist at Savannah Wildlife Refuge.

That bellow is the soundtrack of breeding season. Weather depending, it runs mid- to late spring, when males start roaming and showing off.

“That’s when the males start getting out and roaming around, doing their bellowing and setting up territories and the females start looking for places to build nest mounds,” Harris said.

Harris drove through old rice fields turned wildlife refuge, now home to thousands of gators. And while it is breeding season, it is not all romance. For the males, it can turn into a showdown.

“The males will get more aggressive towards each other, but not necessarily towards people. I have seen them on one of our two refuges where two large males fighting pretty much to the death. And then one of them, well, it’s gator eat gator, some of the ones end up eating the other ones eventually. Whichever one is the victor,” Harris said.

If you start seeing those nest mounds piling up, that is your clue the next chapter is coming: baby gators, usually about two months after eggs are laid.

“And the mother, she will spend about the first year at least, sometime a year to year-and-a-half, actually protecting those small gators,” Harris said.

Harris says people are welcome to visit, just give gators space, and never feed them. That can teach them to associate humans with food, and that is when a wild watch can turn into a dangerous one.