Footage has gone viral on social media showing a brave Florida resident containing a wild alligator that ventured into their neighborhood. When the medium-sized 6-foot gator, colloquially referred to as a “swamp puppy” in the Sunshine State, wandered too close to a house, military veteran Eugene Bozzi knew he had to act quickly.
Fetching a nearby trashcan, Bozzi approached the gator, backing it into a driveway as the reptile began showing its teeth in a defensive posture. Seizing the opportunity, Bozzi thrust the large trash bin forward and slammed the lid on top of the alligator, corralling it into the receptacle. With its tail still protruding from the top of the bin, Bozzi fought with all his might to hoist the trashcan up and safely secure the gator.
Speaking to WESH 2, Bozzi said, “Somebody’s gotta step up and do something, we all got to look out for each other right? I was frightened when I had it in it, because it was so powerful. And I didn’t expect that, it was pushing out, whipping its tail around.” The 6-foot gator was found in front of the home of Orange County resident Denise Sparks, who had no idea it was outside until she heard the commotion.
“I would have been gator food, I would have fainted,” she recalled. “I said, ‘What in the world is going on?’ I heard boom boom boom.” Citing his experience in the military, Bozzi’s instincts were triggered, prompting him to mitigate the situation. “Army training kicked in, get it done, dropping it in, keep moving,” he said about his gator wrangling.
The American Tribune reported on another recent incident where an alligator was spotted in the Everglades National Park in Florida dragging a gigantic python in its mouth through the water as bystanders watched in amazement. The medium-sized gator was seen clutching the dead python, which was substantially larger, and paraded it by the tourists who were in awe of the sight before them. The video sparked numerous comments from users on social media.
One person commented on Facebook, “I’ve never been to florida, let alone the US, but I’m starting to think this city is as good as Australia when it comes to things that give me the heebie-geebies 🫣”. One man weighed in on the matter, opining, “First of all the snake has been dead for a while. In fact probably several days. The corpse is swollen and floating. Secondly a gator that size did not kill a snake that length.”
Highlighting the problem with invasive pythons in the area, one woman wrote, “Good, more gators need to follow suit. Pythons are invasive to the area and have been wreaking havoc for a decade now, changing the whole ecosystem system. If not controlled they could fail the whole Everglades and it would be the butterfly effect for the east coast.”
Watch the video of Bozzi capturing the gator with a trashcan below:
Watch the gator with the python in the Everglades here:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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