Hunting alligators in Florida is legal, with restrictions, but most people don’t show them off on their rear bumper.
And while alligator sightings don’t shock many Floridians, drivers on the interstate are not used to seeing them hitching a ride on the back of a moving vehicle.
Was it real? That’s a valid question.
A Florida driver on I-95 caught the “Kodak moment” (an expression from an ad campaign from the 1960s) on her camera phone on Labor Day. The ‘gator was tied to the back of an SUV. Though going 70 miles per hour, she managed to grab her phone and take the photo, which she posted on Facebook the next day.
“It was on I95 in Brevard County,” Karen Kress, who took the photo, told NBC 6 South Florida. “I’m 99% sure it was a real dead gator.”
According to another witness, it was a real alligator, and there was a tag on it that suggested it was caught during hunting season, which is between August 15 and November 1 in Florida, in an effort to keep the population of the reptiles under control.
There are apparently about 1.3 million alligators in Florida. Not sure how they know that, but this one won’t be missed, except, perhaps by its family. In any case, it was a bizarre, dramatic scene, and some would say a cruel one, on the highway, in view of passengers, including kids.
Of course, people have been known to show off deer killings in the same way, but not-so-much alligator catches.