The carcass of a giant alligator was found in the drainage system of a residential neighbourhood in Fort Myers, Florida on Monday.
After being alerted of a bad odour coming from the catch basin by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, the Department of Transportation (DOT) crew arrived on scene to find a dead 11-foot long alligator stuck in the storm drain in the Whiskey Creek community.
The workers looped a line around the gator’s neck and used an excavator to pull the animal out from the catch basin, the Lee County Government explained in a statement.
The staff snapped one photo and the gator was taken to a designated dumpsite where it was buried.
The county government says DOT typically handles one to two dead alligators in the storm drain infrastructure every year.
“We don’t usually see gators that big because our pipes are not that big,” said the county’s DOT Director Randy Cerchie.
The pipes leading into the catch basin area where the gator was located were around 14-inches by 24-inches. The gator was stuck in a four-foot wide catch basin and was about three feet below the ground.
“This was an abnormally large gator, but removal is part of what we do,” said Cerchie.
This wasn’t the only massive alligator to make the news recently. Just last week, a 14-foot long gator gained worldwide attention after a video taken by golfers at the Buffalo Creek Golf in Florida went viral.
