Alligator Makes North Carolina House Call, Can't Pull Itself Away

BOLTON, NC — An alligator took up residence under a North Carolina family’s porch last week. No one outside of a trained handler likes to tangle with gators, for good reason. Behind crocodiles, alligators deliver the second-strongest bite on Earth, so conventional wisdom among wildlife authorities is to just leave the creatures alone and let them leave when they’re darned good and ready.

An enormous 10-foot alligator that caused an even bigger sensation in Bolton may have wanted to move along, but it couldn’t. It was stuck under the porch of a mobile home. So the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission dispatched some of its wardens to free the gator, and bring peace of mind to school teacher and bus driver Kathy Brown’s daughter and son-in-law, who live next door to Brown.

Brown told news outlets she got a call from her son-in-law at school Wednesday while she was at work. He heard something move as he sprinted up the steps to the porch, which had no skirting. He thought it might be a stray dog and popped his head under the porch to take a look, coming face to face with the frightening reptile.

“He said, ‘Hey, I just got home from work and there’s an alligator under the porch,’ ” Brown told news station WECT Thursday.

She finished out the day and came home to what turned out to be a big social event in Bolton, a tiny town of about 650 located 125 miles southeast of Raleigh.

Brown’s video on Facebook shows the wardens discussing how to dislodge the gator — “a big ‘un,” Bolton said at one point — and her narration explains what the video doesn’t show.

“Is that an eyeball I see?” Brown said. “That’s an eye I see.”

At another point, she advised the wardens to “just leave him there.”

“He ain’t hurting nobody,” she said. “It’s all right for right now. That’s a big ‘un.”

The alligator was aggressively hissing.

“He’s mad,” Brown said, noting for those interested that alligators are quick and can travel at 35 mph. At that speed, an alligator could outrun Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, who tops out at about 28 mph. If cornered, they’ll also defend themselves, which is why wildlife authorities usually leave them alone.

At one point, one of the wardens crawled under the porch to assess the situation, causing a ripple of concern among the curious spectators. The wardens managed to get a rope around the alligator and began tugging.

“He flopped and he was so big, he moved the trailer up,” Brown told WECT. “Through the floor, you could feel the trailer shake.”

Finally, the alligator was free and the wardens guided him into a chute that resembles a road culvert and relocated him to Green Swamp, a place rarely inhabited by humans.

“Holy macaroni!” Brown said. “Y’all are good. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The alligator was one of three seen in Bolton last week, Brown said in the video. One of them was a bit bigger than the unwelcome visitor at her daughter and son-in-law’s house. Brown told WECT that she has lived in Bolton for 20 years and until this week, she’s never seen an alligator in town, let alone three.

It’s breeding season for alligators, and North Carolina Officer Scott Pritchard told the news station the reptile may have been on the prowl for a mate — or it may have just been looking for habitat.

“It’s hard to do, but leave the alligator alone,” he said. “Give it time. It’s gonna move on its own. It may take days. It might take weeks.

“That’s a hard pill to swallow when you’ve got a 10-foot alligator under your house. I get it. In that situation, after a few days, yeah, that’s probably something we need to come handle.”