COOPER CITY, FLA. (WSVN) - Residents in a Cooper City neighborhood watched in shock and amazement as a trapper pulled a 7-foot alligator from a storm drain, Friday.
Cellphone video captured the moment Ian Tyson with Native Village and his fiancée pulled the female reptile from the storm drain just east of Southwest 100th Avenue.
“Look at that,” a woman could he heard saying in the video.
“There’s a freaking alligator,” another neighbor is heard saying.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God. That looks like a dolphin,'” said 8-year-old Ariana Medina.
Not quite.
Neighbors said they were aware something had been lurking in the drain for months. They just didn’t know what it was.
Residents of all ages kept a safe distance as Tyson pulled out the alligator and brought it to a front yard located feet from the drain.
“To see the rest of it come out, and to see that it was that big, was crazy,” said A.C. Spitzer.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s a real alligator,'” said Medina.
Tyson’s young son was seen calmly sitting behind him as the trapper securely bound the animal, which measures 7 feet 2 inches tall.
Medina, who lives nearby, said she had total confidence watching it all go down.
“They were professionals,” she said.
Spitzer acknowledged Floridians have become used to seeing alligators in all sorts of places, but what he witnessed on Friday still managed to come as a shock.
“The gators, like, from being down here, ‘woo-hoo, a big gator,’ but seeing that big of a gator come out of a storm drain, it kind of changes that,” he said.
Tyson said the alligator appears to be in good health. He is trying to find a sanctuary that will take her so she can be used for educational purposes.
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