Goofy alligator crawls into Florida road, snuggles responding police car, photo shows
Alligators pretty much do whatever they want in Florida, so finding one in rush hour traffic wasn’t too unusual — until it tried crawling under the responding police car for some shade.
Orlando police posted a photo of the scene on Facebook, with the comment: “Only in Florida.”
The initial 911 call came in at 7:21 a.m. on Wednesday, May 8, when someone reported an alligator was “on the road near John Young Parkway and Church Street,” police told McClatchy News.
“Officers responded to temporarily close the lane until an alligator catcher arrived,” officials said.
That’s when the gator snuggled up to a patrol car.
Details of how the officers reacted were not revealed, but they let a state-licensed nuisance alligator trapper handle dragging it away just before 9 a.m.
The trapper measured the alligator at 7 feet, 2 inches before taking it away, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.
And why did the alligator end up in traffic? It’s alligator mating season in Florida, and males often travel great distances in search of females, the FWC says. It was found a few blocks north of Sunset Lake, which could have been the alligator’s home.
Highs have been in the upper 90s this week in Orlando, leading some social media commenters to suggest the alligator was trying to surrender for the sake of air conditioning.
“This photo .... pretty much sums up Florida,” South Florida Cops wrote on Facebook.
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