A 7-Foot Alligator Finds New Home Under A Tampa Man's Truck

Have you ever driven on a dark Florida road during spring and summer, when gators are especially active during mating season? They can often be seen roaming freely across their territory.

Recently, one driver was reminded of this when they witnessed a 7-foot alligator wandering aimlessly down an overcrowded Venice street and striking at his truck, prompting its video to go viral.

The Story

Video footage has surfaced of a 7-foot alligator living beneath the truck of a Tampa man. The reptile was captured crossing Jacaranda Boulevard in Venice before taking aim at a GMC pickup parked in the median last week.

Daniel Kaufman recorded and posted video footage of the encounter to Facebook. Seeing what appeared to be an alligator trying to gain entry to someone?s yard early Friday morning prompted Kaufman to call authorities immediately.

He works at Babcock Ranch neighborhood as a trucking company owner and was stunned to see an alligator on his property. To assist, he called trappers.

Goodwin says they were able to capture a gator upon arriving and transfer him/her to a Florida zoo, where it will live out its lifetime.

Alligators are native to Florida, and can be considered nuisance species because of the damage they can do by feeding on homes, livestock and pets as food sources. Mating season makes the alligators even more active - becoming even more dangerous to vehicles on roadways!

Florida law makes keeping alligators illegal, and this one seems to have been abandoned after no longer fitting its previous home. Wildlife officials believe the animal was likely abandoned because its size no longer made room in their household.

Buda, Texas resident Anna Holton had kept the alligator as a pet for more than two decades before it was found by game wardens and she informed them she had raised him as her pet for that entire period of time. When this information came out to them they believed her story, but did not conduct further investigation into its origins.

Volunteer at Buda's Animal World and Snake Farm zoo for years, she finally left when her alligator needed caretaking beyond what she could provide herself. Zoo staff helped rehome it at their facility which is now open to visitors.

This alligator may have come to California via someone escaping their home and ending up in Sacramento River. Now state wildlife officials have begun an investigation to ascertain its source.

The Video

Video is an electronic medium used to store and reproduce moving visual media. It may be stored locally on a computer or other device or transmitted over the internet for television shows, movies and online videos; video may also be captured with analog or digital cameras or DVDs.

The most prevalent types of videos include still pictures, animated GIFs and videos. Their format can often be determined by frame rate, resolution and aspect ratio - with higher frame rates creating smoother videos while lower resolution may cause blurry or out of focus images to appear onscreen.

Video files come in various shapes and sizes, yet all share one common structure: images that move left to right in an orderly sequence that are stored as one single file - often called a movie or video clip.

Videos offer viewers another viewing option outside of movies and cinemas - they can be watched on computers and other devices and stored in different formats like MP4, MOV, WMV, MKV and FLV.

iPhone or Android users can create videos using their phones as well, with smartphones capable of recording several minutes per charge while DSLR cameras may record up to several hours at a time.

As Florida enters mating season, alligators become more active. This increases the odds of one of these fearsome reptiles coming directly under your truck or landing somewhere nearby in your driveway.

Daniel Kaufman of Venice witnessed an unusual sight last week: a 7-foot alligator walking directly towards his truck at an active intersection. Kaufman reported that it ignored a SnapOn van before making its way across Jacaranda Boulevard toward him before coming up underneath his vehicle.

At least the alligator was safely captured and brought to an alligator farm for rehabilitation. While alligators are not endangered species, their presence can pose a risk to motorists in Florida. People should avoid feeding or disturbing these alligators as feeding or disturbing may increase the chance of attacks against humans.

The Response

Many are fearful of gators, so when one invades your house it can be particularly nerve-wracking. A woman in Clearwater, Florida was left shocked when she called police to report an 11-foot gator had breached her home and invaded.

As soon as she noticed an alligator in her kitchen, she called a trapper immediately and it was safely captured and relocated humanely, according to FWC regulations.

But this story has reignited widespread concerns about alligators in Florida. Since 2016, when an alligator caused the death of two-year-old girl in Orlando, alligator-related incidents have increased dramatically; last week a Brandon man was hospitalized after an alligator bit his face.

Children and pets often get most of the attention when alligator attacks happen, but alligators can also strike back when they perceive an attack as food or feel threatened by humans. If attacked by an alligator, fight back - they don't fear humans but may attack to defend their territory or themselves from potential attackers, although unlikely they would kill. If an alligator bites you it is important to fight it off quickly before moving swiftly away - use your feet if necessary or jump out quickly of harms way or simply out of danger before another alligator comes near - best move quickly out of harm's reach in case it makes an attack more likely.

Recommendations

Florida alligator mating season means an increase in alligator sightings and one particularly impressive sighting was that of a 7-foot alligator found living under a Tampa man's truck. Though lucky in its new home, its capture by a licensed nuisance alligator trapper resulted in its relocation to an exotic pet farm without anyone getting injured in the process. Below is a time lapse video which provides further details.