Record Alligator Caught Live in Texas

Gary Saurage of Gator Country in Beaumont, TX has reached the pinnacle.

“This is what I have been working toward my entire career,” he said.

That goal is capturing a record-sized alligator alive and last week at Champion Lake on the Trinity River he and his team did just that.

According to a GrindTV report, the huge alligator had lost its fear of humans, so the director of the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge in Dayton called a licensed nuisance alligator hunter to have it relocated to an alligator sanctuary, according to KBMT and the Houston Chronicle.

“We would have preferred to let it live out its entire life at Champion Lake, but his aggressive nature became a problem and this was the best compromise before loss of life for a person or the alligator,” wildlife refuge director Stuart Marcus told the Chronicle.

Saurage said when he and his team including co-owner Arlie Hammonds got to the location they saw several gator including some large ones right near the bank but then in the distance they could see one much, much larger.

“He started coming toward us and the other alligators began to scatter,” Saurage said.

Alligators will eat one another. In fact, an alligator will eat another that is two feet smaller so a 10 footer could eat an eight footer and so on. Saurage used a lasso to subdue the beast.

“It put on an amazing fight and I nearly got pulled int. We were able to tie off to a tree until we could hook them up to a truck. After that we pulled him up the embankment and did all of the things we need to make a safe removal,” Saurage said.

That includes taping the mouth and tying up the legs, a task that is anything but easy.

The new gator is now on display at Gator County for the public to see and according to Saurage will soon have his own enclosure, fitting of an alligator that is an official live catch record in Texas.