Hunter bags 905-pound, problem-causing alligator; lively debate ensues
A renowned hunter from Mississippi was given a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to hunt a huge alligator that was suspected of eating livestock around a lake on private property in South Florida.
Doug Borries of Dynamic Outdoors TV, owner of nine world records and 36 state records for hunting and fishing, wound up bagging a 905-pound alligator and claimed it was the largest gator ever taken in Florida by a non-resident hunter, as reported by WXXV 25.
The alligator measured 13 feet, 4 inches and was about a foot short of a state record, according to the Sun Herald. The longest gator captured in Florida was 14 feet, 3.5 inches, caught in Lake Washington in Brevard County. The record weight is 1,043 pounds for a 13-foot, 10.5-inch gator taken in Orange Lake in Alachua County.
“This guy said he’d seen the gator since he was a child,” Borries told WXXV in Mississippi. “It was time for the gator to go because some of the calves were disappearing. So, he was down deer hunting with me, and he asked me if I wanted to come and hunt the gator. I said, ‘Absolutely.’ To me it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Borries told the Sun Herald the meat was processed for eating and he was having a full, life-size mount made of the hide.
However, not everybody on the Dynamic Outdoors TV Facebook page was pleased with the story, many suggesting the troublesome alligator should have been trapped or sedated and relocated to a zoo or wildlife sanctuary.
“It is really sad to take the life of a creature that is part of our world,” one commenter wrote. “We need to leave nature alone, they are part of our ecosystem.”
Another wrote, “So sad. It sickens me.”
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Others defended the legal and ethical hunt Borries conducted.
“Some of these people clearly don’t understand hunting regulations or why they are necessary for a healthy animal population,” one wrote.
And yet another wrote, “It’s easy for other people to condemn another when it’s not their family or livelihood at stake.”
At last count, there were 372 comments about the story on the Dynamic Outdoors TV Facebook page.
