Gator captured in family's pool

A family in Port Acres needed helping removing an uninvited visitor from its pool. 

"I've seen snakes and turtles. Everything else. Frogs. But never a gator!"

Larry Bland says when he woke up Saturday morning and walked outside his Port Acres home he couldn't believe his eyes.

A five foot alligator was swimming in his backyard pool.

"I called the sheriff's department, city police, county extension agent. I looked all in the phone book."

Bland finally contacted someone from Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Gary Saurage owns Gator Country in Beaumont and contracts as a gator catcher for the state agency.

He says Parks and Wildlife called him out to take care of the five foot problem.

"Being out at Gator Country, we like to keep the alligators alive," said Saurage. "We like to come out and hand catch them ourselves, bring them back to Gator Country."

In the past six weeks Saurage has been called out 47 times to catch gators.

"We've found them this year in swimming pools, driveways, ditches. Had one almost in a garage. Almost every situation you can think of."

He says catching this gator was a challenge.

"In a deep pool like this water, that is deep. It is pretty tough because they can swim pretty fast."

But after several minutes of squaring off with the gator, Saurage was finally able to catch him and tie his mouth shut. Then he secured the alligator for the trip to Gator Country.

But while the intruder is gone, Bland is still uneasy about getting back in the water.

"I don't want to swim for a while until he gets out of there."

Saurage says a production company has put together material for a reality show based on Gator Country.

He believes it has a good chance of getting on the air.