SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — As Hurricane Beryl continues on a path toward South Texas and Northern Mexico, residents and tourists aren't the only ones leaving South Padre Island as a precaution.
Animals from a sanctuary on the island are also being moved to safety. Earlier this week, wranglers and volunteers rounded up 37 gators from the South Padre Island Birding Nature Center and Alligator Sanctuary.
Their biggest challenge was a massive fella named Padre who didn't want to budge. He's about 50 years old, 12 feet long and 800 pounds! It took a bunch of people and an ATV to pull Padre out of the water by his tail.
Next, they had to secure the cranky gator's snout. Jay used a snare to hold Padre's mouth down while a wrangler named Eddie wrapped electrical tape around his mouth. Very carefully. He admitted the whole process was pretty nerve-wracking.
"I hope Jay got it. I hope Jay's got him with that snare. That's what I think. And this time he had it," Eddie said.
"Now, we're using this rope to try and secure his jaws," Jay said. It was slippery at first as he looped the tape over and over to prevent those scary teeth from chomping.
Before they could load Padre into a truck, Jay hopped on his back to tie up his feet.
"The problem is they can dig their feet in and fight back. So, by securing his feet first, before we do all that, we're kind of taking away his ability to fight us so hard," Jay said.
Thankfully, Padre didn't put up much of a fight.
"Yeah, he's on his best behavior today," Jay said. "I was expecting a lot more rolls and thrashing."
Volunteers from Sea Turtle, Inc. were on hand to help the wranglers.
"We want to make this situation as the least amount of stress that we can possibly put on him," Jay explained.
A large female named Laguna was a little easier to round up.
"She started coming towards us. We just came towards her," Jay said. "It's the rest of them, and especially once you catch the first one out of a pond, they kind of catch on to what you're trying to do."
But Laguna was protecting a nest of eggs she'd just laid so she tried to get back to them.
"if you hear her roar, that was Laguna. And the tape that was around her legs on the front side came off, she was trying to crawl away," Jay said. "Now they're getting back on her, putting the tape back on."
The alligators were moved to Gator Country in Beaumont where they'll stay until the storm passes. Hurricane Beryl not only threatens the alligators' safety. If they escaped during the storm, they'd be a danger to the surrounding community.
"All of the alligators that are here in the first place are here because they couldn't be in the wild anymore. Usually, because they've been fed," Jay said. "But they've been habituated, habituated to being around humans, associating humans with food."