{"id":393397,"date":"2026-09-08T05:28:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T05:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/393397\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T05:28:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T05:28:40","slug":"alligator-attacks-child-at-weeki-wachee-preserve-hcso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/393397\/","title":{"rendered":"Alligator attacks child at Weeki Wachee Preserve: HCSO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">WEEKI WACHEE PRESERVE, Fla. &#8211; A child is recovering in the hospital after an alligator bit them while swimming Monday at the Weeki Wachee Preserve in Hernando County.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> Alligator bite in Weeki Wachee   <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">A child was bitten by an estimated 9- to-12-foot alligator while swimming in the preserve.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The victim and several other children became isolated on a sandbar before Hernando County Fire Rescue rescued them.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/juvenile-alligator-bite-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" width=\"932\" height=\"524\" data-v-2fe2fe3e=\"\"\/> <\/p>\n<p data-v-2fe2fe3e=\"\">Courtesy: Hernando County Fire Rescue <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The child suffered non-life-threatening injuries to their arm and leg and was rushed to Bayonet Point Hospital.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">A licensed Florida wildlife trapper responded to the scene and set traps to catch the gator.<\/p>\n<p> Unanswered questions after attack <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What we don&#8217;t know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Officials have not yet confirmed the victim&#8217;s name or exact age.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">They haven&#8217;t provided an update on whether the trapper caught the alligator.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> Staying safe near Florida waters <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What you can do:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The sheriff\u2019s office urges residents and visitors to exercise extreme caution near waterways and obey all posted rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">They added that swimmers should never enter areas where swimming is prohibited.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: The information in this story was gathered from a community alert issued by the Hernando County Sheriff&#8217;s Office, which acknowledged assistance from Hernando County Fire Rescue and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/hernando\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hernando County<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/science\/wild-nature\/alligators\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alligators<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEEKI WACHEE PRESERVE, Fla. &#8211; A child is recovering in the hospital after an alligator bit them while&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13925,47,8705,115,554,135,137,136,628,14992],"class_list":["post-393397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-alligators","tag-fl","tag-hernando","tag-news","tag-science","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-us","tag-wild-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393397","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=393397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}