A Florida woman is seeking to rescue an alligator that has been put in a community retention pond with its snout taped up.
She said the reptile has had its mouth bound since December when a trapper attempted to remove it from the enclosure.
Amber Lock said the alligator was probably lost by the trapper as they tried to extract it from the water.
"Whoever attempted to trap him and put the tape around his mouth clearly lost him and that's what started this," she explained.
Ms Lock says she has attempted to contact several groups including other local trappers in hopes of freeing the animal but has run into issues relating to required permit.
Speaking to Fox 13, she said: "I tried other avenues to try to expedite this and make it something that's important to everyone and there's just been no traction.
"I feel that this animal's been suffering for two months and that to me, that's just unacceptable."
Having their mouth taped shut for an extended period of time can negatively impact alligators, a wildlife expert told Fox 13.
"It does physically affect him. He loses body mass. He gets dehydrated," Martha Rivera of Everglades Outpost Sanctuary explained to the channel.
"You know, if this gator is in a retention pond, the trapper that went out there should definitely not have left him, especially with the tape on the mouth. Then you also have the fact, too, that that tape messes up their skin."
For safety reasons, alligators usually get their mouths taped shut when being transported, but it should not be kept on long-term.
"Someone needs to go back out there and get this alligator," Rivera added. "There's no way that you could just leave it there with its mouth taped shut. It's inhumane as well."
