Highlands County Alligator Killed Was 800-Pound Cattle Eater

A nearly 800-pound alligator suspected of eating cattle was killed Saturday during a hunt near the Florida Everglades.

Okeechobee resident Lee Lightsey, who owns the Outwest Farms hunting group, captured and killed the monstrous alligator, which was about 15-feet long, WPEC-TV reported.

The gator was discovered in the cattle ponds at Outwest Farms, and hunting guide Blake Godwin said he believed it had been eating cattle, Fox 13 Tampa Bay reported.

A large farm tractor was used to pull the animal from the lake, and photos of the beast hanging from the bucket of the tractor made the rounds on the Internet. Godwin said that the cell phone photos uploaded to Facebook weren’t altered.



"Although this animal is huge I was not that surprised it existed," Lightsey told the BBC. "We have come across lots over the last 20 years that have been only a little smaller.

"But what really drew our attention to this animal was the fact that it seems to have been feasting on the cattle on my farm, because mutilated body parts were found in the water. It was a monster which needed to be removed."

Outwest Farms plans to donate the gator’s meat to charity and taxidermy the animal for display, according to Fox 13.

The group has been commercially hunting alligators since 1988, and Lightsey has killed 5,000 gators longer that six feet, according to the Outwest Farms website.

The heaviest alligator ever taken down in Florida was 1,043 pounds, according to Reuters.

Tony Young, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, told Reuters that Lightsey’s 780-pound gator wouldn’t have an official measurement “because it's not going to beat the record.”

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