Images appeared recently of an alligator wandering the greens at South Carolina’s Fripp Island Golf & Beach Resort with a tomato cage stuck on his head.
Some called the 11-foot-2 gator “King Arthur” as the metal frame resembled a crown while others revealed issue over its well-being. In response, the resort’s naturalist staff explained how to best handle a situation such as this.
“It is very tempting to want to jump in and immediately assist by eliminating whatever is stuck on the animal,” they wrote in a Facebook post. “That is not constantly the best thing to do, as usually the animal can secure free of whatever it is stuck in by itself.”
Officials state the tomato cage was stuck on the alligator ‘s head and neck. Image: Fripp Island Golf & Beach Resort
They discussed that they monitored the alligator and after 2 days, they saw that it had shed the crown off of his head. However, part of the cage was still twisted around his neck, which they believed may present an issue since it could get stuck on something undersea and trigger him to drown.
“For those reasons, we decided human intervention was required,” the staff said, adding that they collaborated with officials at the University of Georgia Ecology Lab to record the gator and get rid of the metal piece, which fit type of like a snare. “Now that he is totally free, he can securely resume living his finest alligator life,” they added.
The lesson that they wished to share was in a case like this, the very best thing you can do is contact wildlife officials so the animal is adequately taken care of and they called it “an excellent example of why it is so essential to properly get rid of your garbage.”
Wildlife experts described how to best take care of an animal stuck in garbage. The answer is a mix of don’t and dispose of garbage appropriately.