Free Republic

As if the Philadelphia Flyers' deranged, orange, hellbeast of a mascot couldn't get any more terrifying - he got his hands on an alligator. But this is no ordinary alligator: this is an emotional support alligator, one of the finest creatures to enter the City of Brotherly Love. Just before a game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Flyers mascot Gritty was seen holding 'Wally', an emotional support alligator, during the game.

Florida is well-known for its alligators—they’re found in swamps, fields, and backyards, and they even can be seen crossing state roads on a regular basis. But while alligators are certainly common, giant, 13-foot gators that weigh nearly 1,000 pounds are not. And that’s exactly what the US Coast Guard found last month, the second-largest alligator Florida has ever seen. Attempting to Catch the Behemoth Gator Last month, US Coast Guard Licensed Captain Kaevin Brotz and his friends took on the brave and terrifying job of catching and killing a huge alligator that was spotted in a lake outside Orlando. The...

Police in Treasure Island, Fla., attempted to wrangle a large alligator spotted on the beach, but soon discovered the reported reptile was a sand sculpture. Photo courtesy of the Treasure Island Police Department/Facebook May 16 (UPI) -- Police in Florida responded to a beach to round up what appeared to be a large alligator but was soon discovered to be a realistic sand sculpture. "Crikey! Look at the size of that gator one of our officers tried rounding up on Treasure Island Beach last night," the Treasure Island Police Department wrote in posting a photo of the faux gator to...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida backup quarterback Jalen Kitna has been suspended from the football team after his arrest on child pornography charges.

An alligator was caught on camera approaching a group of golfers on a Florida course while a member of the party nonchalantly took his shot. A video posted to Facebook by Melissa Walsh shows her husband, Michael West, lining up and taking his shot at the Heritage Landing Golf & Country Club in Punta Gorda while ignoring the alligator approaching him from the rear. "I was lining up my approach shot from about 125 [yards] out. I knew he was coming up diagonally behind me," West told McClatchy News. The rest of West's party laughed after he took the shot...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (TND) — In what must have been a terrible surprise, a north Florida man reportedly says a monstrous alligator exploded out of the water and devoured his beloved pet while they were playing fetch. Josh Wells tells the Tallahassee Democrat he was with his 40-pound black Labrador Retriever mix, named "Toby," on a nature trail in early June when the attack happened. Toby was reportedly standing in shallow water near the trail when he was grabbed, head first, by the gator. Wells says he and Toby were playing fetch with a tennis ball at the time. Boom, the...

As college football limped toward the finish of its fraught 2020 regular season, it was fitting its final full-slate Saturday was saved by a guy throwing a shoe. And for a team with a leading Heisman Trophy contender in quarterback Kyle Trask, it was ironic the season's biggest throw came from cornerback Marco Wilson. It all was a perfect example of the universe's cyclical nature: the defending champs (what's left of them, anyway) pulling off the season's most stunning win. Little has made sense in this wild spin around the sun we call 2020, and so it was that LSU's...

Former NFL wide receiver Reche Caldwell was shot and killed Saturday in an attempted robbery, his girlfriend and mother told TMZ. A “couple of people” jumped from the bushes and “ambushed” Caldwell, his girlfriend said, as he went back inside his home to grab a jacket before the two went out on a date. His mother told TMZ that the 41-year-old Caldwell, who was shot in the leg and chest, died in the ambulance taking him to the hospital.

A woman captured the shocking moment she discovered two alligators fighting outside her Florida home after she heard pounding on her door. The video of the surprising encounter in Fort Myers was posted on Facebook last week by Susan Geshel. When she first saw the reptiles before 7am, Geshel told The Fort Myers News-Press that one of the alligators had his snout pinned on her door while the other was stationed at a distance with its snout wide open.

Cynthia Covert was waist deep in a pond behind her friend’s home on Kiawah Island clutching a rope as her friends tried to get her away from the alligator that dragged her into the water. As her friends pulled, she calmly said, “I guess I won’t do this again,” according to a supplemental report released Tuesday by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office. Moments later, the alligator rolled. Covert, 58, went under. The supplemental report provides further details on South Carolina’s third deadly alligator attack in four years. Covert, a Johns Island resident, was on Kiawah doing her friend’s nails, the...

Mexico has shut down the operations hub of the country’s most powerful drug families — a remote ranch with a lake full of gators and lions on the prowl. The Monte Rico compound, in the state of Veracruz, was registered to brothers Jacinto and Alberto Rodríguez of the infamous the Los Piñas Cartel. The twosome turned their land into a place where they tortured their rivals, officials said.

An alligator has been caught on camera while climbing over a tall fence in Florida. Footage posted on Facebook shows the huge reptile moving from one side of the street to the other in front of stunned onlookers. The incident happened at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville (NAS Jax) last Saturday.

A Tennessee police department is warning residents to stop flushing drugs down their toilet and sinks out of fear they could create "meth gators." "Now our sewer guys take great pride in releasing water that is cleaner than what is in the creek, but they are not really prepared for meth," according to a Loretto Police Department social media post. "Ducks, Geese, and other fowl frequent our treatment ponds and we shudder to think what one all hyped up on meth would do." The police posted the warning to Facebook on Saturday after officers found a suspect unsuccessfully trying to...

Texas Border Patrol agents fear that a six-foot alligator who lives in the Rio Grande, which migrants swim across daily to get into the United States from Mexico, may carry out a deadly attack.

A video of uncertain age (recently uploaded to Instagram by @504ollie) shows an unidentified man on a boat holding a gator by the neck, using its open mouth to puncture a can of Michelob Ultra. The man then slams the beer and tosses the gator back in the water, while a “Hell yeah” can be heard in the background. The @504ollie account changed its settings to private, but the video has been re-uploaded to multiple accounts, including Drunk People Doing Things, where it has garnered over 3 million views. [snip] Coincidentally, this is also the second video showing an unidentified...

A 350-pound gator greeted an unsuspecting Florida woman at her front door Tuesday morning, causing the panicked homeowner to flee. When Geri Staples heard the aggressive knock, she peeked out of a clear window in her door to see who — or what, rather — was causing the ruckus. To her surprise, an estimated 10-foot-long alligator was on the other side, and it appeared to be frustrated. "I saw him right there and he hit the door, and that’s when I ran [upstairs]. I wasn’t sure if he kept pounding like that if he could actually open the door with his...

They can’t eat Cohen until they drown him, and Cohen, a rather buoyant kind of fella’ REFUSES to be drowned. “One thing that is apparent but has not been stated this way: the swamp is full of alligators,” my friend Budd reminds me this morning. In our struggle for freedom and liberty we’re forgetting about the “Party of Wickedness”, writes my friend Paul. Special Counsel head honcho Robert Mueller III is neither Republican nor Democrat. He’s a ‘Party of Wickedness’ member and blows with the (swamp) wind.”

A North Carolina swamp park has posted a video explaining how alligators survive in a frozen pond, and it’s both creepy and bizarre... ...The alligators seem to instinctively know when the water is about to freeze, says Howard, who is general manager of the park. They respond by sticking their nose above the surface at just the right moment, allowing the water to freeze around them.... Alligators then enter “a state of brumation, like hibernating.” Alligators can regulate their body temperature in all sorts of weather, park officials said, and can essentially remain frozen in place until the ice melts.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Texas — Gator Country has more than 350 alligators just on the outside part of its facility on FM 365 in Beaumont. There's even more on the inside. But it's flooding extensively. KFDM/Fox 4 reporter James Ware was at Gator Country on Monday morning. Owner Gary Saurage told him that more than a foot of water was inside parts of the building. In 12 years at the FM 365 locations, Saurage has never seen flooding like this. "We're less than a foot a foot from (water) going over the fences," Saurage said. "All of these are certified, high...

The Florida Gators captured the College World Series title on Sunday night with a 6–1 win over the LSU Tigers to sweep the best-of-three series. Florida scored its first two runs in the bottom of first and second inning before holding the lead. LSU scored its first run in the seventh inning but also lost a run due to an interference call on a Tigers base runner. LSU threatened in the eighth inning but failed to score. Florida added four runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to seal the victory.