An 85-year-old woman was mauled and killed by an alligator on February 20 in St. Lucie, according to Florida state wildlife officials.
The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) responded to the scene after witnesses dialed 911.
Locals informed WPTV that an alligator grabbed the woman’s dog as she was walking it.
The woman tried to pull the dog away from the alligator but was overcome by the reptile. The dog survived the attack. About two hours after the first 911 call, a nuisance alligator trapper was called to the location and successfully captured the alligator involved in the incident.
Robert Lilly, the alligator hunter, said that catching the alligator was not easy. The reptile was under the water and didn’t surface. The alligator was believed to be between 600 and 700 pounds and between 10 and 11 feet long.
In August 2022, an 88-year-old woman was killed in an alleged alligator assault in South Carolina when she was gardening close to a pond in the Sun City Hilton Head neighborhood.
In a similar incident, authorities said that another elderly woman in Florida died in July 2022 after being attacked by two alligators after falling into a pond. An FWC spokesperson told ABC News that alligators are more active during the summer and spring seasons because their metabolism speeds up as temperatures rise.
