Pastor’s Notes: Alligator Gar

Alligator gars are ambush hunters and may lie very still at the top of the water waiting for smaller prey to come within range of their deadly jaws.  They feed mainly on other fish but have been known to prey on birds, small mammals, turtles, and carrion. Alligator gars have been reported to attack duck decoys and eat injured waterfowl shot by hunters.  This gar, in particular, is capable of delivering a serious bite to fisherman or swimmers but there are no documented cases of attacks on humans.  All of God’s gars grow slowly and live, relatively speaking, long lives.  Females of the species reach sexual maturity around age 11 and may live to be 50 years of age; males mature around age 6 and may live over 25 years. They easily reach 6 ½ ft and weigh over 100 lbs.  Females are generally larger than males and have been reported at over 300 lbs. and 10 or more feet in length. The largest recorded alligator gar was taken from the St. Francis River in Arkansas (near Cathy’s old stomping grounds) during the 1930′s  and weighed 350 lbs.  Their eggs are poisonous, causing illness if consumed by humans. They have a highly vascularized (a good blood supply) swim bladder connected to the throat by a pneumatic duct.  By gulping air, gars are able to survive in water with very low oxygen levels, i.e. sloughs.  These characteristics provide the perfect design for living within slow moving rivers, reservoirs, oxbow lakes, bayous and bays.  However, due to dredging, dams, dikes, and levees  the large overflow floodplains that once existed have all but vanished in North America.  Consequently, populations of this magnificent fish have in recent times been on the decline over virtually all of its range.  For a number of years the Tennessee Wildlife resources Agency has been stocking alligator gar within the Hatchie and the Forked Deer river system in an effort to restore the balance that God intended these giant creatures to provide to the ecology of our river systems.  I applaud these efforts as I am certain that we are called to be stewards of God’s creation.  Genesis 7:3 makes plain God’s concern that the different kinds of animals would be preserved and Genesis 8:1 indicates that God had not forgotten Noah or the animals.  Just as Noah and his family were God’s chosen servants for the preservation of animal life during the time of the flood. I would argue that we too are to preserve and protect what remains of His creation in our day…even the alligator gar.