Enormous Alligator Terrorizes North Carolina Family: 'Like Lake Placid'
An enormous 11-foot alligator terrorized a North Carolina family as it took up residence in their pond.
Carol Woollery, of Boiling Spring Lakes, had been running an errand with her daughter when they pulled out of their driveway to see a huge alligator in their neighbor's yard, WECT reported on Wednesday.
"He was so huge. We thought it was fake. My daughter was scared to pass him," Woollery told the news outlet. "But I had somewhere to go. I had somewhere to be. And I was like, 'Well, you've got to go past the alligator.'"
As the daughter drove past the alligator however, "at a blink of an eye" the alligator spun round towards them and opened its mouth.
"It was like a movie. Like Lake Placid," Woollery told WECT.
The 1999 movie Lake Placid tells the story of a gigantic crocodile that terrorizes residents living in Black Lake, Maine.
North Carolina Wildlife arrived at the property the next day to find the alligator had made itself comfortable in the neighbors pond. Wildlife officials monitored the alligator, but they decided not to remove it.
The officer told Woollery that alligators are usually shy, and that the reptile would not bother her.
There are hundreds of alligators living across North Carolina. Wildlife officials will remove alligators deemed a nuisance—if they are large, and displaying threatening behavior towards humans. However as the species is endangered, the alligators cannot be relocated without a permit.
The officer advised Woollery that the alligator would move from the yard soon, as the pond was not home to any suitable prey. However, Woollery and her neighbor Tara Lax, were concerned about their children and pets.
"I mean, seeing him in action. If we walked past there and he jumped out, we didn't stand a chance," Woollery told WECT. She said her five cats would "have been a snack for him."
"We love animals. We have a house full of animals. But that [gator] was a dinosaur. Really, that was a dinosaur," she told the news outlet.
It was the first time such a large alligator was spotted lurking around the houses.
Woollery and Lax eventually decided to fork out $600 for a private alligator trapper to come and remove the reptile from the area.
Lax said wildlife officials were reluctant to "stress the alligator out."
"I absolutely understand not wanting to stress a gator out," Lax told WECT. "But at the same time, they're not taking into consideration the fact that we're stressed out, just trying to walk out to our vehicles. Having our children come back and forth up and down the road."
The alligator was eventually removed from the property by a private trapper.
Newsweek has contacted the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Carol Woollery for comment.
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