Video captures massive gator on stroll at Florida reserve
LAKELAND, Fla. -- A massive gator turned heads in Florida as video captured it taking a stroll through a nature preserve.
Kim Joiner told CBS affiliate WKMG that she took the viral video of the huge gator at the Circle B Bar Reserve at the Polk Nature Discovery Center. She estimated the gator to be at least 12 feet long.
Joiner posted video of the encounter to Facebook, and it has since been shared more than 25,000 times.
This guy ain't a puppy. A woman took this video from a nature center in Lakeland. I won't be visiting said nature center. (h/t @10NewsWTSP) pic.twitter.com/FfKPMcsgh6
— Justin Warmoth (@JustinWarmoth) January 16, 2017
Kristi Buckley was also there, taking photos just feet from the gator.
“I probably should’ve been a little more afraid than I was,” she told CBS affiliate WTSP. “I was just so inspired by seeing this amazing creature come across the path who’d obviously been there for decades.”
Buckley told WTSP that the gator has a nickname among regulars at the reserve, “Mr. Humpback.” She and her husband however are calling it “Godzilla.”