PARKLAND, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida man wrestled an 8-foot, 8-inch alligator from a swimming pool in Parkland, Florida Tuesday.
Gator Boys‘ Paul Bedard posted an eye-popping photograph of him lifting the giant reptile above his head like a prize after the safe morning capture.
Bedard said he got a call in the morning that the gator walked through the pool screen and into the pool. He said he hadn’t had a good-sized gator in a swimming pool in about a year or so, so he “was kind of looking forward to this when [he] got the call.”
Bedard said it’s fun to capture gators in swimming pools because the water is clear and the animal doesn’t have anywhere to hide, so he can play around with it until the gator is tired enough to capture and remove.
“This guy was super mellow; didn’t really give me a hard time at all,” Bedard wrote. “I couldn’t get him to spin on me; he really wanted nothing to do with me. I simply made a frontal catch put a snare on his mouth and taped him up.”
Bedard said he didn’t want to pull him out of the water until he tired him out, because if he did a “death roll” he would hurt himself on the concrete.
The capture was “basically as smooth and easy as it ever gets.”
The alligator rescuer is part of the Everglades Holiday park’s Gator Boys Alligator Rescue crew.
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