Headless, limbless alligator carcasses have been showing up in Florida canals – and state officials have no idea why.
The most recent reptilian corpse was found dismembered in the Caribbean Canal in Fort Myers Shores over the weekend, according to WINK News in southwest Florida.
“My wife and I went for a little boat cruise on Saturday evening and we saw something floating in the middle of the canal here,” Jason Weidner, a neighbor who saw one of the dismembered gators, told the station.
At first, he thought it was a big fish. But after a closer look – and smelling the rotting animal – he realized what it was.
“Medium-sized alligator that the head was missing, the tail was missing, the feet were missing,” Weidner said. “The neighbor came, and we were talking and said, ‘What are those over there?’ And I went over there and saw two more.”
The other carcasses were smaller gators, both of which were also missing their heads, tails and feet, he said.
Another neighbor, Jim Jahnke, lives next to the seawall and told the station that this was the second time he saw something like this.
“About a year to two years ago, I saw one,” Jahnke said, adding that he saw tire marks in the grass Saturday near the site. “I wish I could find out who it was that was dumping them in there.”
“Then I started thinking I think I saw tracks in the grass over there – or like, a vehicle has been over there close to the wall, and maybe they just threw them out you know and took off,” he said, adding that he wants to know who the gruesome culprits are.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission told the station that although they had no record of the dumped gators in the canal, they’d look into it.
The floating bodies left both neighbors disconcerted, however.
“Yeah, they shouldn’t do that, I have them under my dock and somebody is feeding them, and that’s why they come down here,” Jahnke said.
Anyone caught abusing wildlife could get four years of prison time and fines, the station added.