BILOXI – (AP) An 11-foot alligator that lived in a pond at Hiller Park in Biloxi has been captured and killed.
Sgt. Barry Delcambre, a state conservation officer, said the alligator weighed about 600 pounds and could have been as much as 50 years old.
Officers from the state Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks were forced to kill the ‘gator because it had become a hazard to people after it swam into a pond at the park.
“Think about it,” Delcambre said. “You always have Canada geese there, and I’ve never seen a place like Hiller Park where you have a nutria come out of the water in broad daylight and you almost have to kick it out of the way. If you were an alligator, what better place would you want to be?”
Delcambre said people had been feeding the alligator, causing it to lose its fear of humans. That made it more dangerous.
Feeding an alligator is illegal in Mississippi.
The SunHerald reports that the policy of the state in most cases is to euthanize alligators longer than 7 feet. Alligators fed by humans are always put down.
“It upset me to kill that alligator,” Delcambre said. “It had been out there near the park for eight years. The city had put up signs that alligators might be present, and we’d arrested as many as five people for feeding alligators in the area off Atkinson Road. But the bottom line is that we live on the water. The water is their habitat. You should avoid alligators, and you should definitely never feed them.”
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