Huge 400-POUND alligator that dragged a 100-pound pit bull named Tank into a pond and ate him is captured
- Trappers captured the 11-foot-long, 400-pound alligator in Auburndale, Florida,retention pond Thursday evening
- Earlier that day, the gator snatched a woman’s white pit bull and ate him
- Cynthia Robinson said she could do nothing but watch her six-year-old dog named Tank get devoured by the huge reptile
- It took trappers 30 minutes to drag the gator out of the water after luring him with distress noises; he will be put down
Trappers in Florida on Thursday night were able to capture a massive alligator suspected of killing and eating a 100-pound pit bull named Tank just hours earlier.
Cynthia Robinson said she was walking her six-year-old dog, Tank, by a retention pond in Auburndale at 7am when a hulking gator emerged from the water, pounced on her pet and dragged him away.
‘He was so fast. He took my dog, and he was gone…Tank didn’t even stand a chance,’ she told Spectrum News.
To catch a predator: Trappers in Florida captured this massive 400-pound alligator (left) suspected of killing and eating a woman’s pit bull named Tank (right) on Thursday morning
The alligator was swimming in this retention pond in Auburndale when it struck
Owner Cynthia Robinson said the gator was so big and attacked her dog so quickly that there was noting she could do to save Tank
Robinson described the scaly predator as the biggest alligator she has ever seen and said it made her pit bull weighing 100lbs look like a ‘Chihuahua’ by comparison.
‘He looked at me like, “Momma, help me,” and I couldn’t do nothing,’ she told WTSP.
Robinson was afforded one final glimpse of her dog when the alligator came up to the surface clenching Tank in his powerful jaws.
‘He just like sat there with my dog in his mouth,’ the devastated dog owner recalled in a separate interview with the station WFLA.
At 8pm that day, a trapping crew contracted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission arrived at the park looking for the killer gator.
They used alligator distress noises to lure animal swimming in the pond. As soon as the huge reptile approached the shoreline, the trappers hooked him, reported the satin WTSP.
It took an additional half-an-hour to drag the 11-foot, 400-pound beast out of the water and force him into a cage.
Officials say the nuisance alligator will be euthanized.
Robinson (left) caught one final glimpse of her dog when the alligator came up to the surface clenching Tank (right) in his jaws
Trappers used distress noises to lure the gator from the retention pond on Thursday
It took the crew 30 minutes to drag the hulking beast out of the water
The alligator measured just over 11 feet in length and had an estimated weight of 400lbs
A relieved Robinson later returned to the park to thank the trappers for capturing her dog’s suspected killer.
‘I really feel better that they got the alligator,’ Robinson said. ‘He’s a monster.’
The number of alligators harvested or relocated in Florida is steadily increasing, according to a data examined by Naples Daily News of the Florida Wildlife Commission’s Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program.
The number of alligators either born there or relocated jumped from 7,296 in 2014 to 8,929 in 2018, a 22% increase in five years, according to the analysis.
The nuisance alligator suspect of killing the pit bull will be euthanized
Robinson returned to the park to personally thank the trappers for catching the gator
The regions with the most nuisance alligators generally are in Central Florida and along the Gulf Coast, as alligators tend to live in all 67 Florida counties.
Florida is home to around 1.3 million alligators, which is where most alligator attacks take place.
The first fatal alligator attack recorded in the United States occurred in 1973 near Sarasota. Since that time, 23 more deaths have been reported.