motor

Bullets Bounce Off Alligator's Skin

POSTED: 5:58 pm EDT October 17, 2007
[/align]UPDATED: 8:24 pm EDT October 17, 2007
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SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. -- [/b]A 13-foot, 1,000-pound alligator considered to be one of the largest ever seen in Seminole County was captured after it posed a threat to people and animals in the area.

"He posed a threat to the public and that is why we took him," alligator trapper Jerry Flint said.

A motorist spotted the giant alligator roaming along state Road 17-92 near Lake Monroe and said it was poised to strike. When trappers arrived to the area, they tried to take it down with bullets. Flint said two .45-caliber bullets bounced off the alligator's tough skin.

A bang stick was eventually used to kill the large alligator.

"(A bang stick) is all we have between us and a 13-foot alligator that weighs 1,000 pounds," Flint said.

Flint said the 13-footer was rare for the area.

"This is unusual," Flint said. "We catch a lot of 10- and 12-footers. We respect them and respect them all the way from 4 feet to this 13 footer. They're prehistoric dinosaurs and when God made them, he made an awesome animal."

It took Flint and others about two hours to load the alligator into a cooler after it was taken down.
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[/align]this was about one mile from my house..
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m.t.hands

yeeeooooowwww, that one big lizard[:-][:@][:@]

here is one, not quite that big that was killed very close to one of my best friends parents place on the trinity river right off hwy 19 on the river end of lake livingston

http://www.lufkindailynews.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/09/24/gator.html

lethalconnection

Ive seen bigger in my toilet

buckhunter14

That is some tough skin. A bullet traveling as fast as it does, cannot even penetrate it's skin... Wow!

indianahunter83

Kind of said if you ask me. A gator that big deserves to be caught and transported to the glades or some other place for it to keep on living!

thynmynt

I'm sorry, but that simply cannot be true. Lake Monroe has an abundance of large alligators in its waters.

JeffS

Actually most alligators do not get to be 13' long. People over estimate the size of most of them. I real 13 footer is actually pretty rare.

thynmynt

I'll agree that a 13 footer is rare to see, and rare to catch, but I believe there are plenty of huge gators never seen by man. Lake Monroe is very large.
Lake Jessup has its share of large gators as well. I remember when Lake Jessup was unknown to most people outside of Sanford. Now there is a bridge going over Lake Jessup and homes built around it. More large gators are bound to make an appearance (IMO).

motor

Female alligators rarely exceed 9 feet in length, but males can grow much larger. The Florida state record for length is a 14 foot 5/8 inch male from Lake Monroe in Seminole County. The Florida record for weight is a 1,043 pound (13 feet 10 1/2 inches long) male from Orange Lake in Alachua County.

yes there probably are bigger gators in monroe and jessup but so far none have been caught, legally..i live about two miles north of jessup and about a half mile from monroe on the st johns river..i have fished them both for 50 some odd years and have seen some bigguns..they have a season on them here now and you have to buy a permit to hunt them..lake jessup has hundreds of gators in it as does monroe..there have been several attacks and death in the last year or so..that's why they kill an aggressive gator..i have seen them come out of the water and eat a dog and it could easily be someones child..so don't feel sorry for the gator..