A Florida alligator hunter scared himself when he caught the second largest of its kind in the Sunshine State, which measures over 13 feet and 920 pounds and compares to a dinosaur.
Kevin Brotz, who runs an organization called Florida Gator Hunting and has been around for nearly 20 years, was on the water near Orlando with two others on Friday.
The alligator – whose population the state of Florida is trying to control – appeared seemingly out of nowhere and its size caused visible shock to the men on board.
“When we saw this alligator, it was way bigger than anything we had ever caught before,” he said.
“It was a giant dinosaur,” added Brotz. “It’s not every day you have a giant dinosaur in your boat.”
Kevin Brotz (pictured above right), a Florida alligator hunter, scared himself when he caught the second largest of its kind in the Sunshine State, which measures over 13 feet and 920 pounds and compares to a dinosaur
It took Brotz and his boatmates Darren Field and Carson Gore four hours to deal with the alligator, which ended up weighing 920 pounds and 13.3 and three-quarters of an inch.
“I lay down in the front of the boat and said, ‘Okay, I have to lie down until we come back,’ because I thought I was going to die. “The thing was huge,” Gore said.
“I was scared like never before,” added Brotz.
Brotz noted that he’s been involved with hunting alligators for a long time and has even made it his mission, but this is something new.
“I’ve lived here my whole life and think of alligators, but I’ve never really seen anything like it,” he said.
He was also concerned for the safety of Field and Gore, who are close friends.
“Honestly, my first concern was safety because we were in a smaller boat,” Brotz said.
“And then you add an alligator with a head this big.” All he has to do is turn around and we’re in trouble. All we said right away, all I kept saying was, ‘Guys, we have to be smart.’ We have to play it safe.’ And I couldn’t have been with better people.’
Kevin Brotz, who runs an organization called Florida Gator Hunting and has been around for nearly 20 years, was on the water near Orlando with two others on Friday
The alligator – whose population the state of Florida is trying to control – appeared seemingly out of nowhere and its size caused visible shock to the men on board
“It was a giant dinosaur,” Brotz said. “It’s not every day you have a giant dinosaur in your boat”
According to the State Wildlife Commission, this alligator was the second largest in Florida history after an alligator weighing over 1,000 pounds.
The largest alligator ever known is a 1,011-pound giant found in Alabama in 2014 New York Post.
Brotz doesn’t want people to know the exact location where they caught the alligator for fear that more people might visit and interact with alligators themselves.
“Ultimately, the odds are slim if an animal that size gets you or, heaven forbid, a child,” he said WESH.
He also expressed ambivalence about the need to kill the alligator, which was done to maintain control over the local population.
It took Brotz and his boatmates Darren Field and Carson Gore four hours to deal with the alligator, which ended up weighing 920 pounds and 13.3 and three-quarters of an inch
According to the State Wildlife Commission, this alligator was the second largest in Florida history after an alligator weighing over 1,000 pounds
Brotz noted that he’s been involved with hunting alligators for a long time and has even made it his mission, but this is something new
“I never feel good about killing an animal.” “But I still respect the harvest,” he said. “Tags are assigned to balance the runaway population.”
He also referenced an alligator that killed a two-year-old boy at Disney World in 2016.
“These are killing machines.” They can, not that they want to, but it happens. “So we also have to balance the population, so that’s how we look at it.”
