Monday, April 9, 2007

Say goodbye to Darth Gator

As promised, our neighborhood GATOR was captured on Saturday. They put out a trap line and then came back to pick up their prize.
I'm still going through the 150+ pictures that DH took of the event (he's doing a great job taking over my photography duties when I'm not home) but I wanted to show you a few of the end of Darth Gator. This was taken after they got him out of the pond before dragging him to the truck.




Do these people look like Alligator ranglers to you? They look like your next door neighbors.





Here's DH sitting on his back (the gator..not his own back). Once he did it all the neighbors got in on the act..even the kids.

According to the Gator experts, our little guy was officially 9'9" long but was missing part of his tail. They measured his snout and said that showed he would have been 11 ft. if all of his tail had been there. They said he weighed approximately 350 lbs.
So now our big fella is gone and we will have to wait and see who will take over his spot in the pond. For everyone that has been freaking out, you can all relax now...until the next sighting.
Till later.............


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4 comments:

Jennifer said...

What a cool picture of Larry on the alligator! To quote the great Steve Irwin, "Crickey! That was a beauty!"

I'm glad he's gone though, that was too big of an alligator for that small pond. Not to mention, there is animals around that could have came up missing.

Michele L from Tampa said...

Sorry, guess I am a meanie - I have to see when people do that to the Gators. How would you like your neck bent back like that? Yes he is a big boy - he should not have been in that small pond for his size, glad he did not bother anyone - but lets not bother him when we hopefully transport him some where in the wild with more space to roam. Guess the animal lover in me coming out

just-jessie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
just-jessie said...

You know I'm torn. I hate to see the big guy taken from his home, but I also like you guys and want you to remain with limbs!

Eek...he's bigger than he looked in "person"