Large Lizards, Braves Talk and Voter Insights

My name is Mark Davis.

I wrote a story for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about tegus, the latest invasive species to enter our state.

And I have with me Jim Gillis, who's probably, if there's a war against tegus, you're probably the commanding general in this battle.

At this point.

At this point.

Fair enough.

Well, look, give me your name and title, all right? My name is Jim Gillis, and I'm a wildlife technician for supervisor for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division Game Management Section.

That's a mouthful.

Okay, well, you know, that's a lot of words to describe

your title, but what do you do? Supervision is a large part of it, but also I'm heavily involved in the alligator tagging program.

And, of course, the tegus and a turkey trapping program we have and various other things.

I mean, we do a lot of stuff in this job.

I mean, we work the storms, things like that, and the cat teams and things of that nature, clean up and helping, you know, and all that.

So it's a very diverse job.

Well, for the uninitiated, if...

If they see one in the yard, what do they look for? And, you know, how would you say that was different than a regular old lizard? Well.

Besides the size.

Very large.

Well, they're kind of this black and white.

They vary from kind of stripes to dots down their side.

And then they have these rings, black and white rings on their very long, whip-like tail.

There's really, once you've seen them, there's no mistake.

And a lot of those monitors kind of can look similar.

But once you've seen one once or twice, you can recognize and tell you.

How'd they stack up against the native lizards we got here? Again, besides the size, are they comparable?

My name is Mark Davis.

I wrote a story for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about tegus, the latest invasive species to enter our state.

And I have with me Jim Gillis, who's probably, if there's a war against tegus, you're probably the commanding general in this battle.

At this point.

At this point.

Fair enough.

Well, look, give me your name and title, all right? My name is Jim Gillis, and I'm a wildlife technician for supervisor for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division Game Management Section.

That's a mouthful.

Okay, well, you know, that's a lot of words to describe

your title, but what do you do? Supervision is a large part of it, but also I'm heavily involved in the alligator tagging program.

And, of course, the tegus and a turkey trapping program we have and various other things.

I mean, we do a lot of stuff in this job.

I mean, we work the storms, things like that, and the cat teams and things of that nature, clean up and helping, you know, and all that.

So it's a very diverse job.

Well, for the uninitiated, if...

If they see one in the yard, what do they look for? And, you know, how would you say that was different than a regular old lizard? Well.

Besides the size.

Very large.

Well, they're kind of this black and white.

They vary from kind of stripes to dots down their side.

And then they have these rings, black and white rings on their very long, whip-like tail.

There's really, once you've seen them, there's no mistake.

And a lot of those monitors kind of can look similar.

But once you've seen one once or twice, you can recognize and tell you.

How'd they stack up against the native lizards we got here? Again, besides the size, are they comparable?