iStockphoto / TACrafts
During a law enforcement training exercise in Southwest Florida an alligator was filmed attacking a marine drone.
The drone was in a lake in Fort Myers, Florida as the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Marine Unit was in the field for a training exercise.
Filming from both the shoreline and in the water, the alligator was seen investigating and attacking the foreign object that had invaded its domain. The video was then shared by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office on Facebook:
The alligator can be seen investigating the marine drone before attacking it. Then, it continues to monitor the drone as it moves around the lake and does its best to make sure it is seen.
Fort Myers, Florida, as everyone knows, sits just north of Naples in Southwest Florida and on the western edge of The Florida Everglades. This is amongst the most alligator-infested waters on earth with an estimated 200,000 gators in The Everglades and 1.3 million in Florida.
On Facebook, someone joked “It was probably thinking that thing would make a nice snack.” Another person added “wildlife is unpredictable” which is pretty obvious but in this instance there was a lesson to be learned as the alligator’s attack interrupted a live training exercise.
All things considered, it is not a very large alligator which is fascinating for a few reason. It is unclear if the gator wanted a snack or if it was attacking out of a territorial nature. Either way, the alligator believed it had the upper hand over the marine drone.