{"id":224293,"date":"2026-04-09T02:21:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/224293\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T02:21:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:21:00","slug":"alligator-hisses-thrashes-after-breaking-into-tampa-familys-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/224293\/","title":{"rendered":"Alligator hisses, thrashes after breaking into Tampa family’s pool"},"content":{"rendered":"

One uninvited guest<\/a> caused a major ruckus in the middle of the night at a Tampa family’s home.<\/p>\n

What was first thought to be a human intruder turned out to be a 9-foot-6 alligator<\/a> breaking into the lanai just after 3 a.m. on March 29.<\/p>\n

In a video posted by the Tampa Police Department, the gator seems annoyed by the officers and nuisance alligator trapper disturbing its swim session.<\/p>\n

An officer can be seen shining his flashlight into the lanai before the alligator thrashes, sending him jumping back.<\/p>\n

“Good God,” the officer says.<\/p>\n

The alligator can be heard loudly hissing while standing beside the pool, as the trapper comes up with a plan to remove it.<\/p>\n

Officers assisted the trapper in pulling the gator into the pool, where it continued to thrash around underwater.<\/p>\n

“So he’ll just frolic around and wear himself out?” the officer asks.<\/p>\n

“Yeah,” the trapper responds. “That’ll burn some of that energy off.”<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the crew was able to tie the gator up, pull it out of the pool and load it into the back of a pickup truck while it hissed the entire time.<\/p>\n

Alligators are known to hiss as a defensive warning to predators, competitors or humans who get too close.<\/p>\n

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission<\/a>, gator courtship begins in early April before mating starts in May and June.<\/p>\n

A gator can be considered a nuisance if it’s at least four feet long and poses a threat to people, pets or property. Anyone concerned about a nuisance alligator should call the FWC’s toll-free Nuisance Alligator Hotline at 866-FWC-GATOR (866-392-4286).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One uninvited guest caused a major ruckus in the middle of the night at a Tampa family’s home.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[15748,135,137,136,3793],"class_list":["post-224293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-florida-fish-and-wildlife-conservation-commission","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tampa-police-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224293","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=224293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}