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TWRA: No gators in East Tennessee

TWRA officials said if there was an alligator in an East Tennessee lake, it was put there illegally.

A couple widely-shared Facebook posts claim that alligators are here in East Tennessee.

However, state wildlife officials have said that's almost impossible.

TWRA announced earlier this year that alligators are appearing in parts of Tennessee as they migrate from Mississippi and Alabama.

All those confirmed sightings are in West Tennessee. Wildlife officers said they take every report seriously but there's no way a gator could have migrated across 650 miles and nine locks on the Tennessee river.

Officials said if there was an alligator in an East Tennessee lake, it was put there illegally.

"TWRA has in the past taken caimans out of the waterways in East Tennessee that were pets that either got too big, the owner didn't want them anymore, turned them loose in the water. So, that possibility exists," said Matt Cameron with TWRA.

Wildlife officers checked out the areas where people reported gators and said they found no evidence of them. What people saw were probably just partially sunken logs.

The agency posted a joke about the fake gators on Facebook saying "looks like the University of Florida is trolling UT, at this rate, Neyland will be surrounded by kickoff. Smokey ain't scared."

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