A large alligator that managed to wander near a Florida neighborhood was mistaken for an unconscious human being by local firefighters last week.
The 11-foot, 600-pound reptile made it to the intersection of Northwest 37th Avenue and 13th Street in Miami on Friday. It was spotted by a crew from the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department who was on its way back to its station.
Alligator On The Street
Ignatius Carroll Jr., a spokesman for the fire department, said the fire team first thought that the figure was that of an unconscious person lying on the side of the road. When the firefighters got closer to it, they realized that the figure was in fact a live alligator.
The fire team contacted the Miami Police Department and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to ask for some help in retrieving the wandering reptile. However, the firefighters had to make sure that the animal did not pose danger to itself and to others while they waited for backup.
"The crew focused their attention on keeping the public away and preventing vehicles from hitting the alligator as it attempted to cross the street," Carroll Jr. noted.
The alligator did not seem to like getting attention from the fire crew, and it appeared to be trying to get away somehow.
Carroll said the animal would get up and start walking around every so often before lying down on the road again. It even made it to a resident's front driveway before deciding to move again. The gator also broke through the homeowner's chain-link fence while on its way to the backyard.
Carroll recalled how they saw the alligator go through the fence like it was nothing to the massive creature.
The fire team alerted people living in the 37th and 30th avenue neighborhood about the wandering alligator, in case they had their pets in their home's yard. This meant having to wake up dozens of residents who may have already turned in for the evening.
Once Miami police and Florida FWC officials arrived on the scene, preparations were made to secure the alligator using some rope.
A trapper was brought in to capture the beast, but things did not turn out quite easy. The rain from the previous night made the animal too slippery to catch using the rope.
This is when the FWC trapper decided to euthanize the creature because it had already broken through a populated area and posed a threat to residents.
Other Cases Of Gators Invading Human Neighborhoods
This is not the first time alligators managed to creep their way to human neighborhoods, especially in Florida.
Last week, officers from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office responded to an emergency call regarding an 8 1/2-foot alligator wandering around a Walmart store in Wimauma. They called in an FWC trapper to help capture the animal. The incident did not result in injuries to shoppers.
In 2018, deputies from the same sheriff's office also had to retrieve an alligator who made it to a local CVS Pharmacy. They transported the creature back to the wild onboard their police cruiser.
