Russellville man gets up close with a gator!

RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. (KTHV) – A Russellville man’s photos of an alligator spotted on a walking trail are going viral on Facebook.

Viewer Lance Stephenson sent one of the photos to the THV11 Facebook page saying that his friend Randy Hardy of Russellville discovered the gator on the Bona Dea walking trail.

The trail has a sign warning that there are gators in the area, but not many sightings have been reported recently.

Holy moly! Ark. man gets up close and personal with gator on walking trail | THV11.com                                                                                                                   

“Finally after almost six years of living in Russellville, we walked up on a trail in the woods off the main path, and there it was,” Lance Stephenson said.

“It let me get pretty close, never hissed or anything, but he did show me those pearly whites!!”

Stephenson estimates that the gator was anywhere from 5’5 to 5’8 but he didn’t get an exact measurement.

“The highest concentration of alligators in Arkansas are usually found in the southwest and southeast regions of the state, but it’s not unusual to find them elsewhere,” said Trey Reid with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. 

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