SHERWOOD, Ark. – Though the Hoop Hogs don’t play the Florida Gators until January, one Sherwood local said he recently found one scouting out the Natural State.
The beast was spotted in a swamp in Sherwood off Highway 67 near Warden Road and seems to be known around the city.
In 2019, the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office posted a warning about the gator being found at the exact spot.
Although people in the area are aware there’s a gator in town, not many have been able to see it with their own eyes in person.
On Wednesday, Mario Turner had to go search for himself after hearing about it for years.
“A picture wouldn’t do the justice,” he said.
He said when he was standing on Highway 67 looking at the swamp he, “thought it was a big old huge log at first,” but he was happily mistaken.
Turner estimates the alligator to be “9 to 10 feet big. Probably over a thousand pounds.”
Turner says he’s lived in the area for a while so to finally see the beast of the town was like, “Wow.”
“Huge,” “big,” “enormous,” “long” and “gigantic,” are some of the ways Turner used to describe the gator.
Turner said, just to be safe, he would like to see the city put up an alligator caution sign.
“Just in case they [people] have any small animals or whatnot, they really need to know there’s actually a gator inside these swamps,” he said.
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission asks people to stay away and keep their distance.
Officials also recommend to not feed the alligators because they will then start to lose their fear of humans after getting used to being fed.