12-Foot Alligator's Stomach Contents Reveal 5 Dog Tags

Some local Charleston-area mysteries are beginning to unravel.

In Charleston County, South Carolina the sight of the occasional gator or two isn't terribly surpising, but when a 12-foot, 445-pound alligator was killed along the Edisto River recently, something was definitely beyond the norm. The Lowcountry gator was processed by a local wild game meat processor, Cordray's, which revealed the contents of the giant creature's stomach.

Cordray's, Facebook

In a viral Facebook post, Cordray's staff said they don't typically look at Ithe stomachs of alligators brought into their shop, but decided to make an exception for this exceptionally large animal, mostly out of curiosity. What they found inside the carnivore's belly were bold statements about just how big and ferocious this beast who spent decades roaming the ACE Basin Estuary had been.

In addition to eye-opening and confusing finds in the gatory's stomach, Cordray's also found five brass I.D. tags from dog collars. Two of those actually had names and phone numbers that were still able to be deciphered even after years of stomach acid corrosion. One of the numbers even still worked, and when they reached the dog owner on the other end, were infirmed that he'd lost his dog 24 years ago while hunting near where the gator was trapped and killed.

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"This is pretty shocking stuff," a Beaufort County, Mary Conner, resident told News Break exclusively when she heard about the dog-eating gator. "We have a lot of pets go missing in the Lowcountry areas, and now you have to wonder about gators snatching them up. Before we just worried about the roads, mostly."

The Cordray's staff also found several bobcat claws and large turle shell fragments, indicating this swamp beast was eager for just about any meal in its path.

Cordray's

Alligators are known to grow pretty rapidly in their first decade of life, with their growth rates tapering off to a slower rate after that -- even when they grow to be fairly old like this gator seemed to be. The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources suggests their local gators, especially in the Charleston area, are known to reach 13 or more feet in length and live up to 60 years. A a well-respected study of gators in the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center in Georgetown County may even suggest a lifespan of beyond 70 years though, with growth more or less tapering off at about 35 years. That could make large alligators harder to pin down in terms of age.

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"I've never seen one that big," says Connon, whose property backs up to wetlands. "We see a lot of them in the three to six or seven feet range, I'd say. They're pretty common just sitting there on the land next to the water. Sometimes the local kids even throw chicken in the water to see if they go for it. They usually do. But we've never really seen any so big that we're scared for the dogs. We probably have to rethink that now, don't we?"

South Carolina officially asks people to never approach or feed wild alligators, which can be found in urban settings and neighborhood ponds somewhat frequently. These are often referred to as 'nuisance' gators, as they pose threats to humans and domestic animals. Once deemed a nuisance, an alligator can only be removed by euthanasia by a local profressional, and it is actually illegal in South Carolina to relocate nuisance alligators.

Have you ever seen an alligator this big in your own backyard or have your own story of a lost pet? We'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments section below.