A Tampa man is recovering Tuesday after he was bitten by a 5-foot alligator he tried to capture near his house, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Kenny Long tried to get a rope around the gator near his home on Delano Avenue, near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Orient Road, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. He is hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.
A neighbor said Long stepped on the gator as he walked outside his home and it crawled to a driveway near a wooded lot. The two men were using a jump rope to get the gator back to a pond.
A spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said anyone encountering an alligator should call the nuisance animal hotline at (866) 392-4286.
The sheriff's office has turned the case over to wildlife officers.
