A Florida driver couldn’t miss an alligator tied to the rear bumper of an SUV while driving down a Florida highway last weekend.
The large gator appeared to be dead with a rope wrapped around its snout, body, and tail as the vehicle traveled along Interstate 95.
“It was on I95 in Brevard County. I’m 99% sure it was a real dead gator,” said Karen Kress to NBC 6 South Florida.
Florida’s alligator hunting season opened on August 15 and ends on November 1. A permit is required to hunt gators throughout the state of Florida.
The big guy appears to have been harvested during hunting season, according to one commentator on the post who wrote, You can see the yellow gator ‘tag’ fastened to his tail.”
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Florida is also home to the ‘Python Challenge’, a 10-day 2022 hunt designed to help eradicate the thousands of Burmese pythons that have become well-established in South Florida by offering hunters cash prizes that range from $1,500 for the longest snake to $2,500 for the most kills.
Additional prizes are offered for active-duty military personnel and veterans. The cost to participate in the hunt is $25 and those registering must pass a 30-minute online training program. Commission Chairman Rodney Barreto called the python challenge part of the state’s larger effort to control the invasive snakes. “There is so much money being put into the Everglades to restore it, we need to make sure that once that’s complete, that we eradicate this non-native animal,” Barreto said.
The snakes are “destroying the natural food chain,” according to South Florida Water Management District Board member Ron Bergeron. “You can’t have a healthy environment without a healthy food chain,” he said recently. “So, it’s extremely important to the environment.”
The hunt is confined to the Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area, Everglades and Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area, Frog Pond Public Small Game Hunting Area, Holey Land Wildlife Management Area, Rocky Glades Public Small Game Hunting Area, Rotenberger Wildlife Management Area, and the Southern Glades Wildlife and Environmental Area.
More than 16,000 snakes have been removed since 2000.
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