FLORENCE – Gina Haygood Reed reported on facebook today,
“Alligator found on Middle Cypress creek County Rd 6…. Be careful when swimming in creeks. The water is up and this is what you may run into. Dwayne is releasing this one in a less populated area.”
WHAT???
Hey, there are photos to prove it! The ‘Dwayne’ to whom Gina’s referring is Dwayne Oliver. He’s an animal control officer for Lauderdale County. He responded to a call Tuesday from a private campground on County Road 6 where Cypress Creek crosses, that an alligator had been spotted. Evidently there were some kids swimming in the creek when they saw the beast. And since they didn’t have time to wait for Troy Landry to come up from his Louisiana swamp, they called Dwayne.
It didn’t take long for him to find the 6-foot gator. It was resting right there on the bottom, in about 3-feet of water. The water’s clear in Cypress Creek, so the gator was easy to spot. Dwayne, who has never been this close to a gator before, had second thoughts about just grabbing it.
He went to the truck and got a pole grabber that he uses to catch dogs and such. He eased the loop around the gator’s mouth, and started pulling. Once the gator was up on the bank, Dwayne taped its jaws shut, secured the gator’s legs, and then proceeded to put it in the bed of his pickup.
He took it up to the Elk River where a lot of gators live year round and set it free, no worse for the wear. The alligator wasn’t harmed in the least and neither was Dwayne.
Moral of the story: Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water because you couldn’t find and water moccasins, doggone it, now we got alligators to contend with!
Photos courtesy of of Gina Haygood Reed.
