CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (WSVN) —There was a troubling trap in Central Florida after, authorities said, an elderly man who had no business tying up a gator went after the reptile.
Seventy-one-year-old Robert Colin accused of an illegal reptile roundup after the alligator was caught in a lasso in a canal.
The gator was seen with a rope around its mouth and tethered to a pole in Cape Canaveral.
“I decided, ‘Well, maybe I can catch it and keep it here, because they can’t monitor it 24 hours, then I’ll help them out,'” said Colin.
According to the the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, Colin was the man responsible.
It all happened Wednesday morning while, Colin said, he was trying to protect turtles in the canal.
“This alligator appeared, and some of the public told me that they’re eating the turtles,” he said.
Using a clothesline, deputies said, Colin was able to capture the 9-foot reptile by “lassoing” his jaw.
“They said I lassoed it, i didn’t lasso it, I put it down and made the motion for up and down at the end of the rope,” Colin said. “He must have thought it was a turtle, because turtles are white underneath, and he bit at it, and when he bit, he trapped himself in the top of the snoot.”
After the gator was trapped, Colin said he called 911.
Deputies said he told them he “found” the gator trapped there. However, surveillance video showed he was the one who did the trapping.
Colin was arrested for “injuring a gator without authority” and was released on bond.
“Since he didn’t have a permit or wasn’t a licensed trapper with the state of Florida, that’s where the charges come from,” said Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Todd Goodyear. “You’re not allowed to remove a gator.”
Ultimately, officials said, the gator had to be euthanized.
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