Florida police worked to save an alligator that somehow managed to get stuck in a storm drain.
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said deputies came across the 6-foot reptile in a storm drain Monday in south Venice, according to a Facebook post. Authorities said they lifted a concrete slab to free the alligator. (RELATED: Golfer Grabs A Golf Ball Sitting On The Tail Of An Alligator)
The deputies said a trapper was called but they did not respond, so the reptile was allowed to return to the lake he calls “home.”
In 2019, police helped a trapper remove a 7-foot alligator that was hissing from a storm drain in Cape Coral, according to a report from the Miami Herald. An 11-foot dead alligator was pulled out of a storm drain in Fort Myers in 2016 by members of the Lee County Department of Transportation, WPBF reported.
Alligators aren’t the only creature Florida authorities have found in these drains. Rescue crews in Jacksonville saved a manatee weighing more than 900 pounds from a storm drain, WJXT reported. The creature was later released back into the wild, after being treated for minor injuries by a team of marine biologists and veterinarians at SeaWorld in Orlando.