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SOUTH FLORIDA — A South Florida Realtor recently lost his drone after an alligator ate it. Rob Rosetto with Rosetto Realty Group in Boca Raton shared a short video of the hungry gator jumping out of the water to snatch the drone mid-air on social media. (Watch the video below.) “Well, there goes my drone,” he wrote in a Sept. 24 Instagram post. “Damn alligator actually just ate it!” In the video, a group watching the gator erupts into laughter and cheers when it chomps down on the drone. A man’s voice can be heard saying, “That’s not funny.”

A Florida man survived for three days in a swamp after an alligator ripped off his arm while he was attempting to swim in the lake - a move he admits was 'not the smartest decision a Florida boy can make.' 'I look over and there's a gator on my right-hand side,' he told 10 Tampa Bay. 'She got my forearm so I grabbed her like this, she was trying to roll by.' Merda said he was dragged underwater three times, but he fought back, and eventually, the alligator left - with his arm. 'Bones poking out, muscles, if I...

A Florida man lost his arm in a grizzly alligator attack, only to spend the next three days wandering the swamp looking for help. Eric Merda, 43, of Sarasota, was visiting the Lake Manatee Fish Camp in Myakka City on July 17 when he got lost in the woods. When he arrived back at the lake, he opted to swim across it as opposed to walking around. “Not the smartest decision a Florida boy could make,” Merda admitted during an interview with 10 Tampa Bay that aired Monday. Not long into his swim, he told reporters, “I look over and...

TAMPA, Fla. (WLS) -- A Florida firefighter and paramedic is recovering after he became the center of his own emergency. Two weeks ago, ABC affiliate WFTS reports J.C. La Verde was shooting an instructional video for his company when he was attacked by a 12-foot alligator as he swam in Lake Thonotosassa, near Tampa. Drone video shot from overhead captured La Verde's brush with death. As soon as he realized he was inside a gator's mouth, he said he tried to open its jaws. "When I felt the teeth, I immediately knew," La Verde said, "And then as I opened...

An alligator bit a man’s face while he was swimming in a lake near Tampa. It happened last Thursday at Lake Thonotosassa which is in Hillsborough County. Fire rescue took the 34-year-old man to the hospital after the alligator bit his face, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission which dispatched a contracted trapper to the lake and is continuing to investigate the incident.

One person died after an estimated 11-foot alligator pulled them into a retention pond Friday at the Myrtle Beach Golf and Yacht Club near Burgess, officials said. Horry County Police spokeswoman Mikayla Moskov confirmed that HCPD's Environmental Services and Criminal Investigations divisions are investigating the death. Moskov said Horry County Fire Rescue responded around 11:45 a.m. to the area of Excalaber Court, and "upon arrival, units determined that an alligator had taken hold of a neighbor and retreated into a nearby retention pond." The victim was recovered from the pond, Moskov said. She added that a South Carolina Department of...

A man lost a chunk of his leg when he was attacked by an alligator outside a Florida hotel after mistaking the reptile for a dog, police said. The bizarre incident unfolded as the man was walking outside the Warm Mineral Springs Motel in North Port around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday and noticed a dark figure shuffling around in some bushes, WFLA reported, citing the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. Thinking that it was a dog attached to a long leash, the man didn’t move out of the way when the gator charged toward him. Then the alligator bit his leg and...

This whopping beast gives a whole new meaning to catch of the day. A Mississippi hunter has caught and killed an 80-year-old, 905lb alligator that measures 13feet 4inches in length at a lake in southern Florida. But even this monster - an 80-year-old who was known to feast on livestock venturing too near to its lake - isn't the largest caught in Florida. The record for the longest alligator caught goes to a 14ft 3.5inch beast caught in Lake Washington in Brevard County and the heaviest was a 1,043lb one in Orange Lake in Alachua County The hunt for the...

Florida may extend its alligator hunt. Hunting seasons across the country are regularly scheduled, with some lasting for only brief windows of time. In Florida, the alligator hunting season only allows the animals to be harvested at night. That may change, however. The Florida Fish and Wildlife has proposed adding additional daytime hours to the hunt, the Tampa Bay Times reports If this change were to be implemented, it would open the hunting time frame to 24-hours a day. Alligators are typically more active at night, which makes it a prime time to hunt them. The proposal was met with...

Talk about your catch of the day, maybe lifetime. A little boy fishing with his father in Florida in their Palm Coast backyard the other evening had quite the unforgettable experience. In a video on dad Sean McMahon’s Facebook page uploaded on Sept. 30, you can see the child at the edge of a body of water reeling in a fish The fish was a bass, his dad explains in the caption that says: “Alligator Alert: Dawson caught a bass tonight and out of nowhere an alligator came up, ate the bass and ripped his pole into the water.”

Massive gator swallows smaller gator whole

No commentary, folks — just watch. 🐊😲 WOW! Who knew that a trash can was an alligators only natural predator? This Florida man caught a gator using his trash can. "I got kids to protect," wrote Abdul Malik on social media. Share videos & photos with us anytime: https://t.co/JkDrXihHwW 📹: Abdul Malik pic.twitter.com/L93qX9I61R — John-Carlos Estrada (@Mr_JCE) September 29, 2021 Link: https://twitter.com/Mr_JCE/status/1443192585728643081

...In Mississippi, it’s alligator season and this time of year typically brings an air of excitement to the area. Powell and his friends were among those who wanted to enjoy the season and they did when they landed a nearly 800-pound gator.... ...“We had one guy with a broke rod, me with a broke reel and one good rod on him,” Powell said. “We were just holding on and praying at that point.”...

According to the sheriff's office, the man's wife told deputies that she was inside her home when she heard commotion. When she stepped outside, she saw a large alligator attacking her husband, officials said. The woman ran to help her husband. Once the attack was over, she pulled him out of the water and ran inside to get first aid supplies. When she realized the severity of his injuries, she got into her boat and went to higher ground, approximately a mile away. The sheriff's office said that when she returned home, her husband was no longer lying on the...

Video taken by a guest shows an unidentified handler at Scales & Tails Utah, in suburban Salt Lake City, talking to some adults and children about the alligator Saturday when it bit her hand and dragged her into the water. Shane Richins, the company’s owner, said...this time the reptile “got a little extra spunky.” One of the guests, later identified as Donnie Wiseman, yelled “We’ve got trouble in here!” before jumping into the water and climbing on top of the reptile. Wiseman got the alligator pinned, and the handler calmly gave him and another man, Todd Christopher, instructions to help...

Joie Henney and Wally the emotional support alligator Wally gets to walk around before entering a roller skating rink. Wally the alligator, and his handler Joie Henney, visit York City summer campers at Roll 'R' Way roller skating rink.

There's a gator problem in Disney World and it has nothing to do with Captain Hook. To clear Disney's properties of roaming reptiles, Florida's gator trappers are coming to the rescue, and are being paid $30 for every reptile they catch. The zealous drive to rid Disney of wandering gators started after Lane Thomas Graves, 2, was attacked and killed by one of the creatures on a beach at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort in June 2016. The Washington Post reported in 2017 that Disney World was crawling with gators even before the tragic incident, noting that more than 220 alligators...

SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) – A Florida man is recovering after surviving an alligator attack over the weekend. Jeffrey Heim was diving in the Myakka River on Sunday looking for megalodon teeth when he was attacked from behind by an alligator. “I thought it was a boat it hit me so fast or it felt like it was so fast,” the 25-year-old said. He told our sister station WFLA he wasn’t in the water for very long when the attack happened. He thinks the alligator was about 9 feet long and possibly a female. It’s currently alligator mating season in Florida....

MILTON, Fla. (WEAR) — Trappers captured a 12.9-foot gator Tuesday evening in the Wright Basin in Milton, Florida. A woman who lives on Lakeside Drive in Milton called nuisance gator trappers, who arrived and captured the gator. It was then taken to a gator farm. The men who captured the gator are Colby Cannon and Scott Bradley. The woman says she’s also seen a six-foot gator and babies. Officer Robert Ramos with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation says alligators rarely attack people intentionally. However, he does say it doesn't hurt to call out their team. “If you can look at...

A pair of Florida women used a Swiffer mop to try to eject a baby alligator that invaded a home and documented the experience in a live-streamed video. Sazan Powers said her neighbor, Erika Venza, had left the sliding glass door open at her home in Wesley Chapel, just outside of Tampa, and her dog alerted her just before noon that there was an invader inside the house. Venza discovered the 1-foot alligator wandering around inside the house and called Powers for backup. Powers streamed the experience on Facebook Live as she and Venza attempted to use a Swiffer mop...