HERALD TRIBUNE (Sarasota, Florida) 18 November 06 Harry the alligator finally meets his match (Kristen Kridel)
Lake Suzy: Alligator trappers hunted Harry for at least six months. Old and wily, the gator that prowled the shoreline near the Nav-A-Gator Grill always got away. Until now.
At 11 feet, 7 inches, it took four men to drag the gator from the Peace River. "It's the most pitiful, snaggletooth thing you've ever seen," said Dawn Hansen, the daughter of the area's recently deceased head trapper. "The poor thing is ugly."
Twenty-year gator veteran John French died before he had the chance to see Harry. He planned to make his seventh attempt to catch the reptile the day he suffered a fatal heart attack while straddling a different alligator. During the heart attack, French talked about missing the chance to catch Harry once and for all. He died the next morning. "All the trappers, they wanted to get Harry for Johnny," Hansen said.
Tracy Hansen, French's son-in-law and the new lead trapper, said he got a call June 15 from the family keeping a lookout for Harry. When he got to the river, he strung a piece of cow lung to a pole for bait. Hansen caught a glimpse of the distinctive-looking beast.
The next day, Harry was on the line. Hansen and three other trappers reeled it in. They wrapped two nooses around Harry's neck and a rope around the tail. It's easier to pull big gators in by roping both ends, Tracy Hansen said.
Although Harry measured just under 12 feet long, it should have been a 13-footer, Hansen said. The distance between the end of its snout and its eyes was 13 inches. But part of its tail was missing or shriveled. "He was plenty heavy," he said. "He was eating good," although "his teeth were sticking straight out of his mouth instead of down like they're supposed to."
Hansen said the end of the snout was turned up. The disfigurement looked like an injury from a run-in with a boat or fire or a birth defect.
Rosalie Yobuck, 85, verified the trappers' catch. "He had sort of a scar, something white on his mouth," Yobuck said. "That's how we knew it was Harry."
The gator came around every evening, Yobuck said, especially when her great-grandchildren were there. "I was kind of scared about it, wondering what he was going to do," she said.
Harry was one of the alligators French really wanted to catch, Dawn Hansen said. Catching it brought his family and friends closure.
Jacob Hansen, French's 11-year-old grandson, who was with his grandfather during the heart attack, is going to keep Harry's stuffed head in French's honor. "We're going to let Jacob have that one," Dawn Hansen said.
Harry the alligator finally meets his match