March 30, 2023 When a randy alligator began roaming Tampa streets for a mate, police leaped into action to capture the animal, with an officer leaping on its back while another grabbed its tail and roped it.
By Mark Price Source The Charlotte Observer Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
It’s alligator courtship season in Florida, and one of the rascals apparently went looking for love on the streets of Tampa in the middle of the night.
Instead of a mate, however, the gator met a very persistent officer.
Their encounter happened just after 1 a.m. Wednesday, March 29, and it was more rodeo than romance.
Callers reported an alligator “roaming the streets” — and it was angry, growling and whipping its tail by the time police blocked off the nearest intersection, video shows.
Things got progressively stranger from there, as one officer attempted to unravel the coiled gator by pulling its tail, then roped it around the neck like a cow and tried pulling it.
“You wanna jump on him?” the officer asks, plotting their next steps. “I’m going to take the head … and you just sit on his body.”
That’s just what they did, too, igniting gasps from a crowd of civilians lining nearby curbs.
Duct tape was then used to seal the alligator’s mouth shut, and a towel was placed over its eyes to calm it.
“No alligators (or officers) were injured in this ‘jaw-dropping’ video,” police wrote in a post on YouTube.
“The growling gator was taken for a ride by our partners from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to find a more suitable home.”
Professional trapper Phil Walters was called to the scene by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and told WFLA a 9-foot alligator in traffic “could end up damaging vehicles, or worse.”
“If you had hit him in a small car, you’d be totaled,” Walters told the station.
Alligator courtship season in Florida starts around early April, with males known to wander into unfamiliar turf in search of females, experts say. Mating follows in May through June.