A Florida MMA fighter has tussled with a 10-foot alligator outside an elementary school.
Mike Dragich, a former Marine and licensed alligator trapper, was filmed wrestling the huge reptile as hundreds of people gathered to watch outside the school in Jacksonville.
Florida is home to 1.3 million alligators. They can be found all over the state but prefer swampy land and other bodies of water. However during the warmer summer months and their mating season in May and June, it is not uncommon for them to venture out of their preferred habitat and into populated areas.
The footage shows Dragich tapping the alligator on the tail. The reptile then whips around quickly, while onlookers scream in the background.
The trapper then tried to pull the alligator by its tail. However it yanks itself free and begins walking right up to the school gate.
Dragich then secures the alligator's mouth with a stick. However the reptile is not done trying to get away and proceeds to roll over several times, trying to free itself.
Eventually, the alligator is secured by Dragich and several other people who sit on its back to keep it still.
"We get there. I walked through the gate. And boom. There it was just ready to go right there in the parking lot, and we just had to get the job done," Dragich told Fox35.
Alligators do not tend to hunt people but they are very territorial and can be aggressive if provoked. The alligator in this instance was clearly agitated.
This is why trappers need a special license so that the reptiles can be removed from areas safely.
"I felt like Batman," Dragich Told News4JAX, explaining that the onlookers were "scared to death."
Licensed alligator trappers in Florida work to remove alligators from populated areas in order to keep people safe.
Occasionally, if an alligator proves to be a persistent threat to people, it will be deemed a nuisance alligator. These are characterized by their bold behavior in approaching people.
A nuisance alligator may display threatening behavior multiple times. Usually, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will euthanize a nuisance alligator instead of relocating it. This is because Florida has a healthy and stable alligator population. The alligator will also likely stray into populated areas again, and continue to display threatening behavior.
Dragich harvested the alligator he caught in the footage and plans to give the meat back to the Moncrief community.
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Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
