For Florida residents, seeing a gator around is nothing out of the ordinary, but one specimen that made it to social media and news outlets recently is much larger than your average sighting.
In Palmetto, Florida, a Godzilla-looking gator was spotted trekking across the ground of the Buffalo Creek Golf Course. Estimates suggest that the enormous gator was anywhere from 14-16 feet in length.
Ken Powell, the general manager of the golf course, tells local news agencies that the gator has been a regular at the course for years and it’s the first one he had ever seen on the course since moving to the area from California five years ago.
"That's the first alligator I saw when I got here," he said. “This is real. He's big, he's not a nuisance, he doesn't hurt anybody. He's got a giant reservoir to go to.”
Powell also notes that the gator doesn’t hurt anyone, and hasn’t for as long as he can remember seeing it, and that it just seems to want to get from point A to point B.
In the video below, spectators get ultra-close to the animal to grab a video of the animal. It appears to move slowly and then collapse on the ground to rest. Powell recommends that no one gets as close to the gator as the man did in the video.
"If you're on foot, you don't want to be that close," Powell said.
Because the gator is a regular at the golf course, many people see it day in and day out. Powell even suggests that the gator is somewhat of a mascot, and some people come just to see it.
There are no accurate measurements of the alligator’s true length yet, but Florida’s current record-holder is approximately 14 feet and 3.5 inches. Because there are not yet any known measurements, just video footage to compare his length to nearby objects, it’s hard to tell if it would break any records or not.
Source: 3 News, Fox 13
