LUSBY, Md. (AP) — A man killed an alligator he trapped on a beach in Southern Maryland and is storing the dead reptile in his freezer.
William Adams said he was kayaking near Lusby in Calvert County recently when he saw an alligator close to his boat, WJLA-TV reported.
He set up trap lines with hooks to catch the alligator over the weekend. Along with his 13-year-old son and their friend, Adams found the nearly 8-foot-long (2.4-meter-long) animal Sunday. He shot it with a crossbow.
“People were saying how I shouldn’t have done it because it’s tame,” Adams told the station. “A tame alligator? In a foreign habitat without its usual food source, I’d hate to see it go after someone’s pet, or even a child on the beach. There are kids running around all the time near there.”
A woman first noticed a 3-foot (0.9-meter) alligator nearby in her pond in 2016, according to Adams. Sightings around Seahorse Beach and Driftwood Beach continued in the following years.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources was unsuccessful in finding the alligator after a report in May, Adams said. The agency told WJLA in a statement that it was never able to confirm alligator sightings in the county when they were reported.
Adams took the alligator home and said Monday that he “had some for dinner last night.”
The natural resources department said it’s consulting with local and federal agencies about the killing.
“We have had alligators or other non-native crocodilians show up in the wild in Maryland in the past,” the agency said. “Occasionally people who have illegally kept pet alligators release them into the wild.”
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