POST AND COURIER (Charleston, S Carolina) 21 August 07 Gator a mean foe in tug-of-war
It wasn't a good sign when a 9 1/2-foot alligator ambled up to the edge of a pond off Mall Drive in North Charleston to meet wrangler Ron Russell late Monday afternoon.
Animal Control had summoned Russell, state Department of Natural Resources alligator agent who also runs Gator Getter Consultants LLC, to a small pond near Rivers Avenue. Officers were concerned that someone had been feeding the alligator, which is illegal and makes it far less hesitant to approach humans.
"If it's a fed gator, it's a dead gator," Russell said.
John Bickle of Goose Creek works at nearby Tri-State Printing Co. and often has fished at the pond. "He's been out here a couple of weeks now. He came over at me. He's never been aggressive until Friday," Bickle said.
Bickle took pictures with his camera phone as Russell began trying to catch the gator around 5:30 p.m.
Russell hooked the gator's belly and used a lasso attached to a 5-foot pole to try and pull it out of the water, but the reptile was having none of it. Russell struggled against the weight, his face red and his gray T-shirt soaked with sweat, as the gator tried to backpedal into the water.
He estimated the male alligator weighed in at 200-plus pounds.
"My back tells me that's what he is," Russell said.
Then the gator turned belly-up and onlookers wondered aloud if he had died. "He's tired, just like me," Russell said.
A poke to the stomach confirmed that the alligator was very much alive.
"If I come over there and kill him, can I have him?" a man yelled from a nearby gas station.
It took several shots from a .22-caliber revolver to render the gator safe enough for Russell to throw a couple of towels over its eyes and get close enough to tape its mouth closed and tie its front legs together. It took two more shots to make sure it was dead.
"A big gator like that, normally we don't shoot in town, but when they're big gators they'll wreak havoc in the truck," Russell said as he took a break before pulling the gator into the bed of his pickup truck. It also would be a danger to Russell, who was working alone.
The gator-getting business has been slow lately because of the hot weather, Russell said. Like humans, alligators don't like to be out in hot weather, so they'll hunt from dusk until dawn.
Gator a mean foe in tug-of-war