May 7 (UPI) — A Florida woman who thought an intruder was trying to break into her home investigated the ruckus on her lanai and found something more surprising: two alligators fighting.
Kayla Burress said she was inside her Ave Maria home with her sleeping baby recently when she heard a loud noise on her screen porch that was steadily getting louder.
“I thought somebody was breaking in because I never thought that the gators were going to enter my porch,” Burress told WINK-TV.
She looked outside and discovered the cause of the sound was not a human intruder, but two alligators brawling on the lanai.
The gators had shredded their way through the mesh. She captured video of one of the reptiles biting the other’s tail.
“It definitely looked like they were fighting over territory or something,” Burress said. “It wasn’t like a mating ritual that I had seen, because there was blood and it had it some hind quarters, like in its jaws through the door.”
Burress also captured video of a licensed trapper cornering one of the alligators as it destructively thrashed around on the porch.
The gators were relocated.
“It was scary,” Burress said. “And I just warned everybody else in the neighborhood, like, watch your kids. Watch the dogs. Because it was fast and they were powerful.”
Florida’s alligator mating season began in April. The reptiles are known to become more aggressive and territorial during the season, which runs through early September.
