Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - 4-foot alligator crossing Highway 35 is struck by a vehicle

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Friday, September 7, 2001
4-foot alligator crossing Highway 35 is struck by a vehicle
Reptile that may have been seeking a new pond south of Rockport is killed by game wardens due to injuries
By Lety Laurel
Caller-Times

Contributed photo

A four-foot alligator was paralyzed after being run over by a vehicle early Thursday on State Highway 35 business. Game wardens killed the alligator.

   A four-foot alligator, likely relocating to a new pond for food, made it only as far as the highway early Thursday.
   The hungry reptile was run over by a passing vehicle and instantly paralyzed. Game wardens killed the alligator shortly after they arrived.
   The alligator wandered across State Highway 35 business, just south of Rockport near Cove Harbor before it was struck. Severely injured, the alligator didn't respond when deputies from the Aransas County Sheriff's Office and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game wardens arrived at about 3:30 a.m.
   "Usually, when we get close, they swing around, swiping at you," said Danny Kelso, state game warden. "There was no rehabilitation that could have taken care of this one.
   "We don't let animals suffer long," Kelso said. "We take care of things like that. We don't like to see the animals suffering."
   Alligators aren't as uncommon in the area as people might think, he said.
   "In our county, we've got hundreds of them, and we get about 50 to 60 calls a year for transporting," Kelso said.
   "People think they're rare, but they're not over here. There's an endless supply of 'gators."
   Alligators usually are reported during April and May, he said.
   Recent rains may have enticed the alligator to wander away from home, said Sheriff Mark Gilliam.
   "Heavy rains seem to bring them out," he said. "So we take them and relocate them."
   Ponds that dried out with the drought are now full of water after recent storms, and more wet ponds means more food for the alligators, Kelso said.
   "This time of the year it generally gets slow unless we get a lot of rain," Kelso said. "Ponds that have dried up are now full and they are all jumping ponds so they can find one for themselves where they're not competing for food."
   Live alligators caught by the Parks and Wildlife Department usually are taken to a pond near the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Kelso said. Dead ones are taken to a spot in the woods where rescuers leave the carcass for nature to take care of.
   "We don't tell where we take them because people like the skulls," he said.
   "We let nature take its course."
   Two alligators at Wayne's World Safari in Mathis got loose during recent flooding in the area.
   Water dislodged the fence around the alligators' pen, allowing them to wander out.
   The alligators weren't found until Jennifer Knapp, whose husband owns the park, tripped over one as she waded through water trying to build a barricade to keep water out of a rhinoceros' pen.
   "He didn't attack, I don't know why," she said. "I laugh and say he remembers that I feed him everyday, but I don't think that was the answer. It almost seems they know we're trying to help them."
   Both alligators will return to their repaired pen Saturday, Knapp said.


Contact Lety Laurel at 886-3716 or laurell@caller.com

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