Alligator killed after it was filmed trying to bite woman’s paddleboard in Florida

‘He came after me and tried to bite my paddleboard. Somebody has been feeding that gator. Makes them very dangerous,’ woman says

An alligator caught on video intimidating a paddleboarder in Florida has been killed after authorities determined it posed a possible threat to humans.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the alligator was caught on 22 February and removed from the Silver Springs State Park, where paddleboarder Vicky Baker, 60, had a scary encounter with the 11-foot, 10-inch gator in September of last year.

The alligator was shot in the head, according to Fresh Take Florida, and its body, hide, and meat were processed, state officials said.

The action was greenlit following the release of video and photos of Ms Baker using her paddle to keep the gator at bay after it swam up to her, bumping its snout against her board. When she pushed the gator away, it can be heard hissing in the footage from the incident.

“Why are you messing with me? Why are you trying to bite me?” Ms Baker can be heard saying in a video. “I’ve never had an alligator after me like that before. Look how close he is to me. He came after me and tried to bite my paddleboard. Somebody has been feeding that gator. Makes them very dangerous.”

A bystander told Ms Baker to move away from the gator “considering you just made him pretty mad” by pushing him away with her paddle.

“Experts say I did the right thing,” Ms Baker wrote on Facebook on 19 September last year. “If you do not have anything nice to say please just keep scrolling. I will delete and block. I’m so sick of all of you that we’re not there being so mean. There was only three of us there until the glass bottom boat can around at the end. ONLY 3 OF US WERE THERE. Only We know the truth and we went straight to the Rangers to report this. Haters go away.”

In this Feb. 22, 2022, photo taken by paddler Brady Toensing, 54, of Reddick, Fla., licensed alligator trapper Al Roberts stands with a nearly 12-foot alligator killed in Silver Springs State Park, Fla (AP)

On 9 September, she wrote in a comment on the platform that the animal “came up fast and out of nowhere. Scared the daylights out of me. My feet were in the water and I was talking to my friends. I didn’t have time to do anything but react. No way was I standing up. I would have fallen in the water”.

Silver Springs Park covers around 4,000 acres and is located about 80 miles northwest of Orlando.

The park website states that it includes “the entire 5-mile Silver River and surrounding sandhill forest”.

While the park’s request to have the gator removed and Ms Baker’s conduct in interacting with the animal have been criticised by social media users, park managers say the gator showed aggression and displayed a possible threat because of its apparent familiarity with human contact.

“Gators are usually afraid of people but when people feed them they lose their fear,” one Facebook user wrote. “If people did not feed the gator he would’ve stayed away from the people.”

There are around 1.3 million alligators in Florida, and they can be found in all 67 counties, Florida data shows.

“Nuisance alligators” are defined as those animals that are “at least 4 feet in length and believed to pose a threat to people, pets or property,” according to the state.

Trappers contracted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission remove alligators at no cost. The hide and meat is part of the compensation issued to the trappers by the commission.