TAMPA, Fla. — The 6-foot alligator in a northern Hillsborough County backyard pond hadn’t bothered anyone. It wasn’t injured. But it was killed.
Phil Walters, a nuisance alligator trapper contracted with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program, had been called after a mother whose child had been playing close to the pond in their backyard and reported the alligator was “lurking.”
A crowd of around 30 gathered when Walters tried to trap the alligator, he said. Some asked why he was there, saying that the alligator had been living in the pond for some time and had never been an issue.
