{"id":223477,"date":"2026-04-08T14:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/223477\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:49:09","slug":"florida-alligator-caught-on-camera-enjoying-early-morning-swim-tampa-trapper-removes-scaly-suspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/223477\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida alligator caught on camera enjoying early morning swim, Tampa trapper removes scaly suspect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ai3mvqtid6hfljub.jpg\" alt=\"Tampa gator caught enjoying morning swim\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>  <a href=\"https:\/\/fox13news.com\/video\/fmc-a03v41ugbl2tnxik\" target=\"_new\" data-v-4292be72=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tampa gator caught enjoying morning swim<\/a> <\/p>\n<p data-v-4292be72=\"\">An alligator let itself into a Florida home to enjoy a solo swim last week. The Tampa Police Department arrived on the scene and found the reptile lounging around the pool area.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">TAMPA, Fla. &#8211; A surprise guest took pool hopping to a very <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Florida<\/a> level last month. An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/pets-animals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">alligator<\/a> broke into a local residence for an early morning solo swim.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"fox13news.com\/news\/florida-alligator-caught-camera-enjoying-early-morning-swim-tampa-police-remove-scaly-suspect\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/hillsborough\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Tampa<\/a> Police Department responded to what homeowners initially believed was a human intruder around 3:30 a.m. on March 29. But, instead of a human burglar, they discovered a large reptile casually lounging in the pool area.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"fox13news.com\/news\/florida-alligator-caught-camera-enjoying-early-morning-swim-tampa-police-remove-scaly-suspect\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\">What they&#8217;re saying:<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">&#8220;What was thought to be a human intruder\u2026turned out to be a Florida-style uninvited guest,&#8221; the police department said. &#8220;With assistance from a nuisance alligator trapper, the scaly suspect was safely removed, leaving the residents to finally enjoy some well-deserved, gator-free sleep.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/gator-goes-for-swim-web.00_02_02_01.still002.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" data-v-2fe2fe3e=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Bodycam footage captured the moment officers arrived, and the trapper successfully wrangled the gator.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information for this story was collected from the Tampa Police Department.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/news\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/pets-animals\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pets and Animals<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/science\/wild-nature\/alligators\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alligators<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa gator caught enjoying morning swim An alligator let itself into a Florida home to enjoy a solo&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13925,28,30,29,115,8713,554,14992],"class_list":{"0":"post-223477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-alligators","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pets-animals","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-wild-nature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}