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HI,

They pulled this beast out of the manhole, it was a couple of blocks from the center of downton Okeechobee.
It was 11 feet plus....



http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

wow

Two words...HOLY SH*T.

Fire up the BBQ..

another illegal caught trying to sneak into the USA good job guys!!

Wow, Was it dead or just tranquilized?

It was dead. If it was tranquilised, they would have wrapped duct tape around the snout.

We are the illegals. The gators were here first.

Shame that they had to kill it.

I agree Ben... they could have sedated it and relocated it.

I think they should have sent it back to Congress where it belonged. Live, of course.

joe

We don't know the whole story. How easy would it be to sedate an alligator down in the sewer tunnels?

Jean, they don't sedate them. They kill them. Even if they sedated it, they would wrap the snout. You can tell it's dead because they didn't wrap the snout. They didn't have to kill it.

Just panic and some jerk who wanted to kill something. Hope he got his jollys.

Yeah -- I wish that they would have sedated him instead

what a massive beast !

Well, not knowing what a lot of sewers look like, I tried to find pictures of sewers. Some of them have curbs on the side that someone could walk on and some apparently do not. Whether or not they have curbs, I don't think I would like to be a sanitation worker and have to go down into the sewer and meet a big gator like the one in the photo. Even if the sewer had curbs, a big gator like that may be able to climb onto them.

So I wondered how feasible it would be to chase a large gator like that in the dark and in slippery sewer waste, get an accurate shot to sedate him, apply the duct tape which may not work as well because of the waste that is covering him, and then pull him up and relocate him. I also wondered what the circumstances were. Was the gator interfering with public works or endangering people? Or did someone just panic and shoot the poor thing as Ben suggests.

I still think that if a wild creature invades public safety it must be removed 1 way or the other, I know you said we are the illegals in an animal territory but since it is we that can save them if they are endangered or on the list of extinction then it is humans that have the say so and not the gators, by the way gator meat is quite delicious!!

Howdy All, Gus here. As a forth generation plumber,
I've had to work in many manholes in my life,& talk about a
hostile environment. Woah!!
So 1st thing I think of is, myself, down in a manhole, doing some
ungodly task,
(there are no nice ones to be done down there!heh heh)
& what my reaction would be if, all of a sudden, I had an eleven foot alligator in my lap, or up my as..., Am I going to take time to consider if I should, oh, lets say, tranquilize it, then dodge around in the manhole strewn with "Tootsi Rolls" and other ............"Debris"........
trying to keep from being from being eaten, till the tranqs
kick in, so we can relocate the poor gator, or if I'm gonna blast
it. Please, at least consider that scenario & put your self in those shoes, before you go declaring what should have been done!!

Hey Gus, do plumbers carry high caliber firearms in the sewer with them? I can't find the story on the net so I don't know what happened. The photo is suspicious too. That's an awfully small manhole to pull such a large gator out of.

If a plumber did see it and made it out of the sewer to report it, the Fla. Wildlife Commission would have the job of removing it. It's their call. I get irritated when people kill animals for no reason other than their own twisted fun. I'm not sure if this story is even real.

ok, here's some info I found from the newspaper....

3.) Alligator found in storm drain

Publish Date: December 13, 2009

I am writing this to set the record straight. There are numerous stories circling around the internet. Here are the facts!

On Wednesday, Dec. 2, Allen Glazier from WW Engineering, Inc. out of Jacksonville, was doing inspections on Okeechobee's storm drains. They came to the drain at the corner of Southeast 8th Avenue and State Road 70 East and discovered the drain was home to an 11 foot alligator.

They called FWC who in turn issued a permit to Rick Lightsey, the nuisance


Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Hey Calvin, hope you don't think that I insinuated that you knowingly posted a phony picture. Only that the gator looks awful large to have come out of that manhole. I thought that it could have been photoshopped before you got it. And to top it off, I couldn't find a story about it on the net.

Just suspicious of the original source. Yes, the FWC doesn't actually remove gators, as you said they hire a trapper who is probably the one who killed it.

Thanks, Cal. I kept looking for the story but couldn't find it.

Another thought, they could've pulled it out of a culvert that leads to the manhole and hung it over the manhole for effect.

Hi Ben,

No, I was not offended by your thoughts...
As a matter of fact...when I drive by there I tend to LOOK at that manhole and think the same thing, sure doesn't look very big.
But we all know, its not unusual for something big to go in a small hole. Did I just say that !

Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Just a few thoughts. (As a city manager, I have worked with--and in--sewer systems.) Odds are this dude/dudette didn't come out of a sanitary (i.e., poop) sewer line; those mains are usually too small, and besides, the stuff in them is as toxic to reptiles as it is for you and me.

Now, a storm sewer (that carries rainwater) is a distinct possibility; those are larger (though for this gator, they'd have to be *really* big), and aren't full of stuff except when it rains a lot--but mostly they're cool and damp and kinda moldy-smelling. A gator would love it (but he or she would be moving slower than normal, because he/she couldn't keep up an active body temperature).

The question i'd have as the city manager would be how the critter got in the storm sewer in the first place. Can't do it by dropping a baby gator down the john--that goes to the sanitary sewer--and most inlets to storm sewers are small and have grates over them. The critter would have had to crawl up from an *outlet*, and those have grates over them, too. I would be sending my crews out to look for a big storm sewer outlet grate that was either broken or removed. Odds are, I would not find one--something like that gets reported almost immediately. It's a nice photo, but I suspect it was staged.

Joe

I have an extensive career knowledge of a city's wastewater system having worked in all aspects of it from house lines to when it was processed at the sewer plant with some big main lines as large as 64 inches in diameter it is very easy for a alligator to be in and live quite comfortable the whole year especially if it has access to food source or eats garbage, rodents etc.

Howdy Ben, Joe, & Calvin. ben you're correct about how small
that hole is, it looks like a valve access cover, way too small
for a manhole access cover. Here in Santa Barbara, we dont need to pack, no gators round here. But I sure would down there, if that was commonplace, under houses too, crawling,& come face to face with snakes & gators, hell with that, I'll stay here in Santa
Barbara, bad enough with just rattlers and Black Widows out here.
............Gus...........

That location is only a stone's throw from Lake Okeechobee and I would bet there are hundreds of gators like that in the lake. It would be amazing if there were not gators in the storm sewer! You should assume there a few living in any body of fresh to brackish water in Florida. And yes they do like to eat the occasional arm or leg or dog or baby.

Well arighty now, think i'll just stay right here in texas....glyn

I'm with you, Glynda. I think alligators are scary.

Very cool picture, Calvin.

Yeah, I wish they could have relocated him too - a magnificent beast!

Scott

Yeah, I wish they could have relocated him too.
- to my house for Christmas dinner!

Gator is great.


As it is, all we had was this:

Ah, Dutch Oven Kitty Stew. LOL. There was a national brand of cat food that actually had a canned cat food product called Kitty Stew. LOL. I wish I had taken a photo of it. They came to their senses eventually and renamed the product.

LOL - great shot, Tom

Never got a taste for gator - though it is pretty easy to find here.

Our back yard borders on a pond - while I was cutting the grass a few years ago, I saw something out of the corner of my eye - it was a small gator sunning himself on a railroad tie - about a foot from MY foot. I like having them in the pond - but the neighbors don't....

Scott

Honestly as bad as I'll get raked over the coals for this, killing gators is a large part being in the south, and also a large part of the diet. So . . . over in these parts he would have made a good meal. The only crime I see in killing him is if they wasted the meat...

Yikes!!! I'd never go back down that man hole again Calvin. Great photo shot! Yours?

John

I just want to say .. HOLY COW THAT'S A BIG ONE!!!

Hi John, no it's wasnt my photo, but sure is a good one.

Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Hi Naomi
Hi Joanne, long time no see.

Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Hey Calvin, How are ya?

Hi Naomi,

I'm doing good, thanks !

He must've gone through alot of toothbrushes!

Now that I'm studying this I don't think I've ever seen a gator's underside before. His trunk/torso looks like corn on the cob. Interesting.

I love wildlife pictures.