Photos: Gator Goes Vertical

By GEOFF FOX
The Tampa Tribune

WESLEY CHAPEL - An alligator that got itself caught between two houses in the Meadow Pointe community Thursday evening had been trapped, killed and ready to be made into “alligator nuggets” by this morning, a local trapper said.

Mickey Fagan of M and D Gator Products of Dade City said he caught the gator - which tried to climb the side of a house in the Morningside neighborhood at about 7:30 p.m.

“We just put a rope on him and pulled him out,” Fagan said, adding that a small crowd of residents seemed “glad to see someone who knew what they were doing.”

“If you get someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing it can take three hours and they tear up all the flowers,” he said. “We do everything as humane as we can.”

Pasco County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Koenig - and Explorer Scout Josh Short - said he was called to Morningmist Drive about 6:15 p.m. Thursday. Using a metal baton that he tapped on the ground, Koenig tried to get the alligator to head toward a nearby pond.

Instead, the misguided gator crawled back and forth between two houses, occasionally trying to climb the side of one.

Homeowner Rick Skinner, whose fence the gator tried to scale, said he hoped the gator could be lured to water, but it was not to be.

As Fagan put it Friday: “He gets made into alligator nuggets.”

“I sell the meat and hides,” he said. “I sell all over the world, Canada, Hong Kong, all over the United States. We process 2,000 to 2,500 gators per year. There’s only a select few slaughterhouses in the state. I have about nine different trappers who bring me their gators.”

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 948-4217 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

GOT GATORS?
If you have questions or concerns about alligators in your area, call the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission’s alligator hotline at 1-866-392-4286.

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