Barbaric

I need to get something off my chest today. I was out swimming this morning, and I saw a cop or security person walking down a neighbor's property across the pond.

As I watched, he baited a pole, and lodged it on the perimeter with the bait in the water. As he was doing so, one of our adult alligators was in the distance following along. The man then walked away, and seemed to drive off. As I got out of the pool, I saw the alligator begin to swim to the bait, and I kept thinkin', "Oh please, don't go there".

Folks. I sat and watched this gator's jaw get hooked, and begin the process of a slow death. The alligator fought against it for a good half an hour. After an hour or so, the person came back, and began to haul the dead reptile up onto land.

Right about that time our two youngest 'babies' this year had headed that way, but were still in the water out in the distance following along with the 'activity' going on. They didn't seem as though they were going to swim in too close. Knowing that if I went down to The Landing, they would swim over to me, I headed down.

They both did as expected, and I remained down there with both of them, until I saw this person drive off with the alligator in the back of his truck. Before that happened, the lady that lives on that property had walked down, and seemed to be writing out a check to the guy, and then she got busy taking pictures with her cellphone as he was dragging the gator across the lawn.

I really do not understand this. It's not like the pond/lake is filled with these reptiles, so if it is population control, it seems a bit unreasonable. If one of them did something wrong, then how in the heck could they know which one it is? Is the point to just kill one of them off? I sit and watch them, and they are too lazy to wander anywhere on land. They remain on the sideline, snoozing, and warming themselves in the sun.

More importantly however, is the way it was killed. This gator was so close while he was baiting the pole, could he not have rather shot it with a dartgun or something? It was terrible to watch it fight with the line for so long, or is there a point I am missing here? If anyone knows, shout out! I still deem it utterly and completely unnecessary. These next words are not exactly eloquent, but I want to state that it really pissed me off!