1,000 Pound Alligator: 15-Foot Gator in Alabama a Record-Breaker

Officials say a 1,000 pound alligator caught by hunters in Alabama over the weekend is a record-breaker.

Biologists with Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries weighed a 15-foot gator that was captured and killed by John and Mandy Stokes, Kevin Jenkins and his children, Parker, 14, and Savannah, 16, during alligator hunting season in the state, wrote AL.com of the record-breaking hunt.

According to the news source, the half-ton alligator in Alabama was so heavy that a winch used initially to weigh the gator in was completely disabled. Next, a backhoe was brought in to weigh the large reptile. At 1,011.5 pounds, the bulk of the lifeless animal completely destroyed the piece of heavy equipment.

Prior to the catch of the 1,000-pound gator, Keith Fancher held bragging rights for landing Alabama’s largest alligator ever legally captured. His prized catch was 14-foot, 2-inches long, and tipped the scales at 838-pounds.

The 1,000 pound alligator dwarfs a Mississippi record set last year by some 280 pounds. Then, Dustin Bockman hoisted a 727-pound beast out of the Mississippi River in Claiborne County.

“Truthfully, after I saw the Fancher Gator, in my mind I was thinking there’s no way we can catch anything bigger than that. When I finally saw it the full-body mount at the Gee’s Bend Terminal, the main thing I remembered was the size of its feet. When I saw the size of the foot on this one, I knew it was a good one,” said Mandy Stokes of her first gator hunt.”

The elated hunters told of a harrowing adventure that sounds like something out of Swamp People. Their odyssey began about 10:30 p.m. Friday night when John and Kevin managed to hook the 15-foot alligator with a special hook. After two hours elapsed, there was calm and the gator was not in sight. They soon realized that their taut lines, thought to be snared on their quarry, were snagged on a saturated water log instead.

Their struggles continued well into the early morning hours, and the hunters soon realized they may need a bigger boat; their vessel was only 17-feet-long.

The hunters’ strategy was to get as many hooks into the animal as possible and disable it with a humane shot to the head. However, the 1,000-pound alligator — unbeknownst to the hunters at the time — had other plans. The first shot didn’t find its mark, and the massive animal submerged into the murky deep.

Hours went by and the hunters soon got the break they needed. Kevin and John managed to harness several more hooks into the struggling reptile and managed to coax it to the surface. There, Mandy aimed her 20-gauge shotgun square at a section between its eyes and fired. Voila! Seven hours into the ordeal and the prized jewel of the Alabama River was dead, all 15-feet of it.

On what the Jenkins and Stokes families plan to do with the 1,000-pound alligator captured, one member says it will be taken to a taxidermy shop in Alabama and skinned. However, plans for the remaining parts are still up in the air.

[Image via: Wikimedia Commons]