A massive 13-foot alligator was "humanely killed" after it was discovered next to a deceased adult in Florida Sept. 22.
Jamarcus Bullard, who spotted the male gator, told WFLA, an NBC affiliate in Tampa, Florida, that he saw the animal holding human remains in its mouth.
“I threw a rock at the gator just to see if it was really a gator and like it pulled the body, like it was holding on to the lower part of the torso, and pulled it under the water,” he told the affiliate.
The alligator, which measured 13 feet and 8.5 inches, was killed and removed from the canal in unincorporated Largo, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The remains of an adult were also recovered.
The medical examiner’s office will conduct an autopsy to determine cause of death and if the alligator was involved. The investigation is ongoing, authorities said.
Immediately after spotting the animal, eyewitness Bullard said he pulled out his phone to record what was going on.
“I never thought I’d see one out here,” Bullard told WFLA. “I thought it would be in the swamps and all that, but it was a big gator out here in our water.”
When deputies and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission arrived on the scene, they tried to capture the animal, who put up a bit of a fight, Bullard said.
“They put a rope around its neck and put it on a pully of a truck,” Bullard said. “They were reeling it in, but it started to pull the truck in the water so the guy was like we just got to get it out a different way.”
Bullard said authorities shot the gator once they were able to get its head out of the water.
"Once they reeled it all the way out, they stretched it out and measured it 13 feet long, and they shot it again,” he said.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is assisting Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office on this investigation. People with concerns about an alligator should call FWC’s toll-free Nuisance Alligator Hotline at 866-FWC-GATOR (866-392-4286), and it will dispatch a contracted "nuisance alligator trapper."
