PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Kerri Kibbe woke up in the middle of the night Saturday to a seven-foot alligator swimming in her pool.
“It was content. It was swimming. It was just happy in the pool,” said Kibbe.
But, she said when she thought about her three kids and her dogs, the gator put her on edge. She called the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office.
The deputy dispatched backed down at his first glance of the alligator. “He said, Kerri, I think it’s 5-6 feet, and I’m not touching it!” said Kibbe.
Then an alligator trapper came out to remove the alligator, but Kibbe said it didn’t go down without a fight. “It did the death roll. It was rolling and rolling. It was fighting him!” she said.
Once the trapper got the alligator out the pool and taped his mouth shut, he measured it. Kibbe thought it was three or four feet. It was seven feet long!
The trapper said he thinks the alligator got into Kibbe’s pool by crawling through the trees behind her home. Her property is surrounded by West Spring Lake and Little Alligator Creek.
Kibbe said she had a fence to separate her home from those trees, but she hasn’t replaced it since Hurricane Irma knocked it down in 2017. She said that’s next on her to-do list.
“I don’t know if I have to put up chicken wire or something,” she said. “But I am going to keep the animals out of my pool.”
She said first she’s keeping her kids out of the pool after dark.
After the trapper removed the alligator from Kibbe’s pool, he sent it to a mating farm. Professional trappers recommend checking pools before swimming at night. They say look under cars before getting in and avoid keeping garage doors open longer than necessary. They also advise staying at least thirty feet away from wildlife.
