Smut lived a good, long life. But a few weeks ago, Valley Park lost the 11 1/2-foot alligator, a longtime resident of the Issaquena County community.

Smut had lived in the area for more than 20 years when he was killed while trying to cross from Deer Creek to a marshy area across U.S. Highway 61 three weeks ago.

“A lot of local people recognized him and had gotten used to always slowing down when they came to that part of the road,” said Bruce Kilburn, an area farmer who helped move the alligator off the busy, two-lane highway.

“My brother-in-law Tim Barnett got a little sentimental about it. He said it had been there forever and everyone knew him. It was kind of sad. He was the one that nicknamed him ‘Smut’ because of his extra dark grey color,” he said.

Smut only had three legs, and though no one ever bothered the gator, he kept the same schedule every day, taking his time crossing the busy two-lane highway a few times a day.

“He was a regular resident. I know we all have to go sometime, but I guess he had a good life,” he said.

Smut didn’t live in Warren County, but he was close – close to about 670 of his brethren who have made their home in Warren County, said Ricky Flynt with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.

The county has about 13,500 acres of suitable alligator habitat, much of which they share with area residents.

“The problems come in residential or developmental areas that are in the middle of a natural alligator habitat, usually around or near any body of water,” said Flynt, the alligator program leader.

With more and more recent sightings this spring, alligators seem to want to share our space more than in years past, but not all area residents are too keen on the idea of cohabitating with a large reptile.

Lakeside Drive neighbors Sandra Rosado and Virginia Hemby now share a new neighbor – a 7-foot gator that likes to lie in the sun in Rosado’s back yard.

Rosado said the alligator likes to sun around mid-day, when there’s no shade by the pond.

“He gets spooked pretty easy. If a car goes down the road, he’ll jump back into the water. If we come outside, he goes back in,” she said.

She said her backyard neighbor is a bit intimidating, but she doesn’t feel threatened.

“He doesn’t want me any more than I want him. I don’t let it bother me. I still cut my grass. He’s in a private area that’s secluded, and no one is bothering him. I certainly don’t,” she said.

But that’s not to say both Rosado and Hemby wouldn’t mind the reptile being removed.

“It wouldn’t hurt my feelings in the least bit if my little friend was gone,” Rosado said.

With the water’s edge only yards away, Hemby said she worries her grandchildren and their dogs might get too close to danger.

Flynt said Warren County’s gators constitute 2.32 percent of the state’s alligator population.

Recent estimates by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks counted between 32,000 and 38,000 alligators in Mississippi. The same survey identified about 408,000 acres of alligator habitat in the state.

Alligators prefer freshwater, but also live in brackish waters and can be found in swamps, marshes, rivers, lakes and ponds.

Sgt. Tracy Tullos, a conservation officer with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, said this time of year is when the alligators start leaving their habitats for breeding season.

One of this season’s favorite spots for alligators seems to be Tiffentown Road.

Richard and Renee Rogers have grown quite accustomed to a baby in their pond.

“He’ s about 2 to 2 1/2 feet long. He’s been there about two weeks, but we were told he’s not a threat at this size. Our dog is bigger than him, so I don’t think we’ll have any problems,” Renee Rogers said.

“In fact, he might be a help. They said he’ll take care of snakes and beavers for us,” she said.

Rogers said the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries told her at this age the alligator moves around a lot and will probably only stay in the pond until the end of the summer.

“As long as he stays nonaggressive like he is now, he’s welcome to stay. We’ve lived here 22 years and never seen an alligator. It’s interesting. My son wants to name him,” she said.

The only anxiety Rogers has is the 5-foot alligator that bit William Elliot on Tiffentown Road in May.

Elliot received 17 stitches after he was bitten while trying to move a gator off the road that runs past Clear Creek Golf Course. The alligator was moved by conservation officers to Clear Creek, about a mile from the Rogers’ home.

“The only thing I worry about is that they dumped it into Clear Creek, and our pond drains into a creek that drains into Clear Creek. I just don’t want any bigger ones coming our way,” she said.

Tullos said the reason there have been so many recent sightings is because the alligators have been protected so long that the population has continued to grow.

Alligators have been protected by law since the 1960s. In 1987, legislation was passed to give the Mississippi Commission on Wildlife Conservation the authority to set regulations to manage alligators.

“It is illegal to harass, harm or bother them in any way, so nuisance alligators can only be handled by official trappers commissioned through our office,” Tullos said.

Killing an alligator without an official permit carries a $2,000 to $5,000 fine, loss of a Mississippi Hunting/Fishing License for three years and possible jail time.

Tullos said it’s better just to completely stay away from an alligator, and it will stay away from you. He said the minute someone feeds an alligator, the reptile gets accustomed to human feedings.

“If you’re swimming in a lake somewhere, the alligators are not going to bother you. They’ll go the other way unless they’ve lost their fear of humans. That’s why we say never feed an alligator,” Tullos said.

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said this time of year his department gets a number of calls.

“It’s usually just that someone’s seen an alligator, not that it’s being a problem,” he said.

Pace said when an alligator is reported to 911, the sheriff’s department responds along with a game warden.

“Unless there’s an alligator in a neighborhood or subdivision where it’s posing a threat, we don’t really worry about relocating them. We have to remember we’re in their territory here in Mississippi. And they’re usually not going to be in heavily populated areas because there’s no food source. They like rural areas,” he said.

And they seem to like personal ponds, too.

Last spring, Bryan Brabston had his own experience sharing his pond with an alligator that “just appeared one day.”

Brabston and his wife, Joy, own Linden Plantation on Duncan Road, and their property features several small ponds.

“This particular pond was about an acre and a half to two acres. One day he (or she – I’m not sure) just appeared at the edge of the bank. I’d say he was about 6-feet long. Officials from Waterways Experiment Station came out and identified it, but said besides harming the fish and turtle population, it wasn’t really posing a threat to us,” Brabston said.

He said he learned that during spring breeding season, it’s not unusual for alligators to move from one body of water to another during breeding season.

“We took all the proper precautions like not feeding it and keeping pets and grandkids away from the pond, and one day he just disappeared. Come to find out, he had made his way across the road to my brother’s pond. He then called someone to come trap it, and I’m told he’s now back at home in the Big Black River,” Brabston said.

He said although the alligator never really wandered up on the land, he was quite a conversation piece for a while.

“We have quite a bit of people come tour our home out here, and although the gator was never ‘on tour,’ if someone would ask, we’d go take a look – from a good distance, of course.”

Pace said although it seems like there are more reports of alligators now within the 600 square miles of Warren County, he said it’s probably because of so many developments around the area in the past decade.

“We’re wondering why they’re there, but the truth is, the gator has probably been there a lot longer and is wondering why we’re there,” he said.

Pace said the most frequent calls come from areas around the Big Black River and the Yazoo River Basin by Eagle Lake.

“We get regular calls from Eagle Lake – regular to the point where it’s not unusual to hear of an alligator in the middle of the highway or road,” Pace said.

Gilbert Rose, manager of Tara Wildlife at Eagle Lake, said the number of alligators has definitely increased dramatically in the past few years.

“I think it’s because we haven’t had a very cold winter in a while. Usually a hard freeze will drive them out, but we haven’t had one of those in a while, so the alligators have been content where they are,” Rose said.

Despite the recent rise in the alligator population, they don’t really come to visit inside the 33 square miles of the city limits, said Vicksburg Police Deputy Chief Richard O’Bannon.

But it’s definitely not an issue city law enforcement could never rule out, he said.

“We do have a lot of the river that borders the city, so it definitely could happen. I do not recall Mr. Gator coming to town, but if he did, we’d have to deal with him. But even then, I’m sure we would call Wildlife and Fisheries because they would know what to do with him,” O’Bannon said.

Alligators have long had strong ties to the Mississippi River and the Southeast. The reptile’s scientific name, Alligator mississippiensis, means “of the Mississippi.”

The average size of Mississippi alligators is much larger than alligator sizes reported from other states, such as Florida or Louisiana, where alligators are hunted.

Twenty-two percent of alligators counted by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks along the Little Sunflower River in Yazoo and Sharkey counties were larger than 10 feet long, and in Steele Bayou in Issaquena and Washington counties, 20 percent of alligators are greater than 10 feet.

Tullos said the state is considering starting a gaming season for alligators next year, but even then there would only be certain areas where it would be legal, such as the Gulf Coast or in Madison and Rankin counties, where there have been nuisance gators along the reservoir.

Flynt reiterated the fact that the main problems come from hand-feeding, which is illegal, and indirect feeding near water.

“Often people will clean fish off their boat dock and discard the fish remains in the water. That will attract them. Another big problem is automatic fish feeders, which not only attract alligators when the fish congregate and are in a feeding frenzy but also gets the alligators used to a food source from the fish food,” he said