{"id":50315,"date":"2024-09-29T18:19:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T22:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=50315"},"modified":"2024-09-29T18:19:53","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T22:19:53","slug":"8-foot-gator-seeks-shelter-on-mans-doorstep-as-hurricane-nears-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/09\/29\/8-foot-gator-seeks-shelter-on-mans-doorstep-as-hurricane-nears-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"8-foot gator seeks shelter on man\u2019s doorstep as hurricane nears Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Floridians are accustomed to&nbsp;hurricanes and alligators, but one homeowner faced both at once when an 8-foot gator showed up at his doorstep in advance of Hurricane Helene\u2019s landfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The encounter happened around 10:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 25, in the Lakeland area, according to the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Things started innocently enough, with the alligator \u201cmoseying through\u201d several yards in the neighborhood, which isn\u2019t surprising in Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Just a routine night in north <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Lakeland?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Lakeland<\/a>&#8230;.a Creeks Crossing Dr resident called PCSO while waiting for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MyFWC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@MyFWC<\/a> due to this guy who had been seen in several yards but last night got bold and went right up to someone&#39;s front door. Eeek!<br><br>Deps Rios (seen here), Gonzalez-Gomez, Rice,\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/CtCjQl4akE\">pic.twitter.com\/CtCjQl4akE<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Polk County Sheriff \ud83d\ude94 Grady Judd (@PolkCoSheriff) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PolkCoSheriff\/status\/1838931514291114028?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 25, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, the gator then \u201cgot bold\u00a0and went right up to someone\u2019s front door,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Standard practice in Florida is not to answer the door when an alligator knocks, so the man called the sheriff\u2019s office and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/account.microsoft.com\/privacy\/ad-settings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A handful of deputies were sent to corral the alligator until an FWC-licensed trapper could get there, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The alligator was captured and hauled away. Its fate was not revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Floridians are accustomed to&nbsp;hurricanes and alligators, but one homeowner faced both at once when an 8-foot gator showed up at his doorstep in advance of Hurricane Helene\u2019s landfall. The encounter&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":50316,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/GYUxqhKXkAAJu69-jpeg.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50317,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50315\/revisions\/50317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}