Game Warden Drags, Kills Alligator(on a Houston suburb's residential street-on video)

Channel 2 Pseudo-News website ^ | 4/29/03 | Channel 2 sleazeball tabloid newsroom

[Diddle E. Squat]

Game Warden Drags, Kills Alligator Katy Residents Angry Over Gator's Death

POSTED: 8:47 a.m. CDT April 29, 2003 UPDATED: 11:04 a.m. CDT April 29, 2003

KATY, Texas -- Some Houston-area residents said they were upset Monday at the way a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department game warden got rid of 9-foot alligator in their neighborhood.

Residents told News2Houston that they called authorities after discovering the gator Thursday in the middle of a road in the 22000 block of Lodgestone Court in a Cinco Ranch neighborhood in Katy.

Witnesses recorded the gator's capture on videotape, in which the game warden was seen tying the animal to the back of his pickup, and then dragging it down the street while children and parents watched.

"It was very inhumane," resident Lara Mercadante said. "It was awful. It was absolutely unreal. If you weren't here you would not believe that it happened. We never thought that it was going to end up the way it did."

The game warden then took the alligator to the end of the street, and shot and killed it, authorities said.

TPWD officials said that although it is not typical practice for their officers to tow a live alligator behind a truck, they believe that the game warden followed what he felt was the most effective course of action.

However, officials said that as of a result of the incident, they are now reviewing their policies regarding nuisance alligator removal.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Judge for yourself, here's Some of the video

[Liberal Classic]

Poor, misunderstood gator.

[CFW]

Residents told News2Houston that they called authorities after discovering the gator Thursday in the middle of a road...

Well, what were they expecting? The cop to politely ask the gator to accompany him to the pound?

[annyokie]

I guess Lara would rather have the gator eat her granny, than be "abused" by the Game Warden.

[Diddle E. Squat]

We've had a lot of Californians and Yankees move to Houston...

[Search4Truth]

Let that be a message to any other rogue gators in the area. Gators ought not trifle with folks down in the Deep South. They oughta know better.

[battousai]

As usual the media takes one part of the story and overblows it. What would they have had him do? Pick up a 9 FOOT gator and throw it into the back of his pickup?? Either that or shoot it right there and risk a richochete hitting the by standers.

Sure it doesn't look pretty, but sometimes you gotta no other options.

I mean what did these whiny residents think he was gonna do with the gator? Talk it into getting into the truck???

[Bigg Red]

Well, what were they expecting? The cop to politely ask the gator to accompany him to the pound?


No, but why would he drag it first and then shoot it? Sounds unnecessarily cruel to me.

[Cobra Scott]

Unfortunately, this is the type of nanny-state attitude that has rubbed off on natives as well.

Had it eaten a kid, they would have been at the lawyer's office that same day.

Texas has gone to he**

[Mike the Conservative]

I think any gators in Florida that are over 6 feet long get trapped by a trapper and then made into luggage.

[Mike the Conservative]

I think any gators in Florida that are over 6 feet long get trapped by a trapper and then made into luggage.

[eddie willers]

gator eat her granny,

annyokie quotes Polk Salad Annie.
Any relation?

[Diddle E. Squat]

My guess is these dolts don't realize that the gator wasn't returned to the wild because having lost its fear/shyness of humans it was much more likely to threaten people and return to urban areas. And sleazeball channel 2 isn't about to educate anyone to that fact. Channel 2 is about the worst example of journalistic theater, the kind that gleefully would throw gasoline on a fire at an orphanage to get better witness 'reactions'.

[July 4th]

Exactly how else did they think the 9 foot alligator was going to get to the end of the street? Oh yeah, just put a leash on it and walk it down there.

[mtbrandon49]

They called the cop to get rid of it and he did. Then they complain because he dragged the darn thing to the end of the street to shoot it. I figure by the time he got there everybody within a couple of blocks was there to watch. Instead of shooting it in front of some kids and softhearted people he dragged it out of the way and killed it.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Nine foot gator weighs a bit too much for one man to pick up. Probably drug it to get away from houses before discharging his firearm. Warden did what he had to do.

[CFW]

No, but why would he drag it first and then shoot it? Sounds unnecessarily cruel to me.

If he shot it right there in the middle of the street, the residents would be screaming about him using a gun...IN FRONT OF CHILDREN!

How would you convince a 9 foot gator to move?

[Vigilantcitizen]

Here in Georgia, Game officers will call in professional trappers to capture nuisance gators. The trappers get to keep the gator for later sale to boot and meat companies, in order to pay for his services.

The skin and meat from a good sized gator will bring several hundred dollars.

[Diddle E. Squat]

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/42803_local_gatorcaught.html

Katy residents outraged at treatment of alligator

By Chris Adams ABC Eyewitness News

(4/28/03) — Some residents of a Cinco Ranch neighborhood are angry and shocked at what they call inhumane treatment of an alligator.

People who live in the Shadow Bend subdivision found a nine-foot alligator in the street. They say they really didn't have a problem with the gator. They just wanted it gone. What they did have a problem with is how the animal was treated by folks with the Parks and Wildlife Department.

It happened last Thursday morning when residents in the subdivision on on Lodgestone at Cannondale woke up to find an alligator in the middle of their street.

"They live on the golf course out here. We see them in the pond back there, so he was only like a house away from his territory," said resident Laura Brumbauth. "He was just laying in the street and everyone was getting their cameras and watching him."

The nine foot gator sat there quietly for hours. Eventually, the Fort Bend Sheriff's Department arrived and then came a game warden from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. At first, the crowd thought the game warden was relocating the gator.

"I think the consensus of the group was that he was here to save the animal," said resident Georgia Daley. "The animal was also, I think, in danger because it was in the middle of the street. It could be run over. It wasn't in its habitat. It just needed to move."

Instead, the game warden tied the alligator to his truck.

"He tied the alligator up and started dragging him down the street and that's when everyone started screaming because he was dragging him too fast and he was flipping and turning and it looked pretty cruel," said Brumbauth.

"When I see that animal laying there, even on the video, it enrages me to think that someone could be so cruel," said Daley.

The game warden then took the gator to the end of the street and fatally shot it.

"If a child was in danger, if a pet was in danger, by all means dispose of the animal. I won't go that far," said Daley. "But if that animal can be saved, then save it."

We spoke with Tom Harvey of the Parks and Wildlife Department. He said alligators that are less than five feet in length they do try to relocate. However in this case, he said, "Safety is our main concern. This nine foot gator would not have been safe to capture and relocate." He also says alligators that have become comfortable around human being are more dangerous.

[Search4Truth]

Being from the Big Easy in the Deep South, I can tell you that was one dangerous gator. Gators that size are fearless, they will attack anything, on impulse - gators don't think before they attack, they just attack.

You don't try to capture an alligator that size, too dangerous. He should have shot it dead where he found it, and then dragged it off.

That's what we do with ones half that size, that find their way into the suburbs through the drainage canals. Gators that size will take small pets. Gators the size of the one in this article takes anything they want.

A gator's most dangerous trait is that they seem docile and lumbering, but in a micro second can be in your face. It's shocking the first time you see a gator go from being a log, to lunging out of the water where all you see is teeth.

To hell with that gator. Although, they are tasty fried or with a sauce piquant.