By Angie DiMichele
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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DAVIE, Fla. — An early-morning call about a water main break in a Davie neighborhood on Friday led to a police officer and a fire captain wrangling a 5-foot alligator that state officials had been trying to capture for the past two years.
Shortly before 5:30 a.m., Officer Nikolas Sanders and Davie Fire Rescue Captain Chris Pelosi responded to the 3900 block of Southwest 84th Terrace, where a caller reported the burst pipe and an alligator in the middle of the residential road, spokespersons for Davie Police and Davie Fire Rescue told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday evening.
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When the first responders arrived, the alligator was lying in the puddle of leaking water, said Fire Rescue spokesperson Jessica Montes . The gator lived in the lake behind the homes in the neighborhood and was well-known to residents. Montes said the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had been trying to catch the same alligator over the past couple of years.
The police officer and fire captain went toward the alligator, and it began to head toward someone’s backyard, Montes said. The duo was able to then corner the alligator, and the officer used a K-9 catch pole to wrap its mouth before it started to “death roll” several times.
Video shared with the Sun Sentinel shows the alligator hissing and attempting to pull away from Sanders as he restrained it with the catch pole in a grassy area next to a home.
Another clip shared with the Sun Sentinel showed the gator lying down on the grass. Police department spokesperson Officer Natalie Benedit said Sanders managed to pin the gator down.
With Sanders in front, still restraining the alligator with the catch pole, Pelosi came up behind it and tossed a rag over its eyes, the video showed.
“That’s what he’s seen on TV that they do,” Montes said of the tactic.
Pelosi then straddled the gator’s tail and got on top of the animal while the officer continued to restrain in the front, the video showed.
They then taped the alligator’s mouth and called FWC, who has since taken it, Montes said.
A spokesperson for FWC did not respond to an email seeking information after business hours Friday.
The FWC’s Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program defines a “nuisance alligator” as an animal at least 4-feet long that is believed to pose a threat to people, pets or property in developed areas, according to the program website. FWC uses contracted trappers to remove the alligators from such locations if a complaint meets qualifying criteria.
FWC does not relocate “nuisance alligators” that were removed, according to the agency’s website. Relocated alligators oftentimes try to return to the site of where they were captured, and remote areas where they would not encounter humans already have healthy populations, so introducing a new alligator “would likely cause fighting, possibly resulting in the death of a resident alligator or the introduced alligator,” according to the FWC.
There were more than 8,700 “nuisance alligators” removed across the state in 2024, the latest data available, according to an FWC annual report. They ranged in size from 1.5 feet to 13.9 feet.
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