Texas Gators Moved Inland Ahead of Beryl

July 4, 2024 – This week at the South Padre Island Birding Nature and Alligator sanctuary, a roundup of all the gators took place ahead of the potential landfall of Hurricane Beryl.

One of the large adults here, a female named Laguna, came out without much resistance. “She’s protecting a nest egg. She just laid here.”

A team of experts spent all day removing all alligators from the facility.

The two weeks ago tropical storm Alberto caused storm surge and flooding here at the island causing pond levels to rise here.

All the gators are headed to their sister organization called Gator Country in Beaumont.

The volunteers pulled out ‘Big Padre’ who is more than 50 years old, #800 and 12 feet long. They pull out Padre with the help of an ATV and towing straps around his tail, but they have to get his mouth secured. They used a snare to hold his mouth down while a volunteer wraps electrical tape around his muddy snout. They attempt to capture him with the least amount of stress possible. But obviously when you’re moving an animal like this, he’s gonna stress out a little bit. He was on his best behavior that day.

These are not wild gators. They were recovered in the wild as a nuisance because they started associating people with food. All of the elders that are here in the first place are here because they couldn’t be in the wild anymore. Usually because they’ve been fed, but they’ve been habituated, habituated to being around humans, associating humans with food. This organization is giving a home to those gators that can’t be in the wild anymore and moving them away from the storm should flooding come to the island.