Man and wife on boat are stunned by 'rare' gator cluster
Alligators swarm canal in Georgia state park: 'There's gators everywhere'
A Georgia boater and his wife stumble upon a swarm of alligators in a canal at Stephen C. Foster State Park in the Okefenokee Swamp.
A Georgia man's encounter with a mass gathering of alligators in the Okefenokee Swamp that was captured on video has prompted researchers to investigate why so many of them congregated in a relatively small stretch of canal.
Marty Welch and his wife were boating through the Georgia swamp at Stephen C. Foster State Park on their way to Billy's Lake when they happened upon the gator cluster, he told Fox News Digital.
Cellphone video of their July 14 encounter was shared on Welch's Facebook page two days later and has been viewed more than 930,000 times as of Monday.
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"Look at the gators. Man, there's a lot of them," Welch is heard saying in the video. "Look at 'em. There's probably 50 or 60."
"More than that," his wife Tina Welch is heard telling him, adding that she thought there "had to be over 100."
Marty Welch and his wife, Tina Welch, pictured at right during their trip through the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, happened upon a mass gathering of alligators in a canal on their way to Billy's Lake. (Marty Welch via Storyful; Marty Welch)
The swarm of gators is seen in the video crossing the canal in both directions.
At times during the video, they were bunched so close together that they could be heard and seen crawling on top of each other in the water.
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"Look at all the gators," Marty Welch is heard saying. "There's gators everywhere."
The video caught the attention of researchers at the University of Georgia's Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant.
Marty Welch's video shows alligators on top of each other in the water. Right, an alligator is seen in a stock photo on a canal bank in the Okefenokee Swamp. (Marty Welch via Storyful; iStock)
"We went out to try and see it for ourselves and document the event but were a bit too late," the university's Coastal Ecology Lab wrote in a July 22 Facebook post.
Student researcher Mark Hoog spoke about the "fairly rare event" in a Facebook video.
"What we've noticed is it happens during periods of low water, so we think it might have something to do with resources," Hoog said.
"It was really amazing to see something like that."
He noted it could be a "feeding event" that is bringing the gators together "when there's not a ton of resources."
Although researchers "didn't see the actual congregation, we did see the aftermath," the Facebook post said.
Researchers counted 151 gators within about a mile-and-a-half of each other, Hoog said.
Marty Welch, left, navigated an alligator-infested canal at Stephen C. Foster State Park in the Okefenokee Swamp. (Marty Welch; Marty Welch via Storyful)
"That's a lot of alligators," he added.
The Okefenokee Swamp is considered one of Georgia's seven natural wonders and the largest blackwater wetland in the South, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
"Perhaps the most famous inhabitant of the Okefenokee Swamp is the American alligator," according to the website for Stephen C. Foster State Park.
"Officials estimate that 12,000 of the country's largest reptiles live within the refuge."
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But the swarm of gators that Welch stumbled upon didn't deter him from navigating through the infested canal.
It's estimated that Stephen C. Foster State Park in Georgia is home to 12,000 American alligators. (iStock)
"We were able to idle right on through and go out into Billy’s Lake," he told Fox News Digital.
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Living in Georgia, Welch says he's accustomed to seeing alligators in the water, but even he was impressed.
"It was really amazing to see something like that," he said.
Peter Burke is a lifestyle editor with Fox News Digital.
