Massachusetts: Boson Fisherman Caught Neponset River's Largest Alligator - by Jauren M. Lohnson (CNN) 1 Nov 2020
Massachusetts: Boson Fisherman Caught Neponset River's Largest Aligator - Jauren M. Lohnson (CNN) 1 Nov 2020
Corey Capps, right, and Rodney Smith with the alligator they caught on the Neponset River.
(CNN) For three years Corey Capps had been dreaming of catching the massive alligator in the Neponset River behind his home in Boson, Massachusetts.
Corey Capps is the editor and main writer for the local website 'Marsh Madness' where he documents New England tidal marshes and his own kayaking experiences. (r/Marshmadness) He has spotted the alligator numerous times and had wanted to kill it.
Now he can say he's done it.
Capps
told CNN he and his wife were taking a boat ride on the Neponset
River after the recent heavy snow storm when they spotted the gator laying up on the bank.
"I guess the sudden snow flushed a lot of cold water into the river, and the alligator was on the bank in the sunshine that was melting the snow."
He called his friend Rodney Smith, who had state-issued gator tags that allowed them to legally go after the animal.
"Three
different times in the last two months, I've been back there fishing
and he's stalked me. ... So me and him, something was going to give
between the two of us," he said.
Later that day, October 31, Smith and Capps went out on the river in a
12-foot jon boat to seek out the creature. Sure enough, he was in the
same spot as earlier in the day. During the hunt the two men livestreamed and gave commentary in a whisper to a live audience.
"We
went out and harpooned him...and we didn't realize—we knew he was big,
but not as big as when we pulled him up that bank. Across the top of his
head was 16 inches wide," Capps said. "We also did not realize that our live broadcast of the hunt was picked up by local Green Party and Animal Rights activists who figured out our location by seeing St. Bosontolph's Bridge in the background."
Protesters assembled on the shore and jeered the hunters as they killed the wild animal. A few bottles were thrown at the hunters and the Animal Rights protesters started chanting, "Sea Life, Not Sea Food!"
Both the fishermen and the protesters called the police. The Animal Rights activists told the 911 operator that "The Old Man of the Neponset River had been murdered." Many of the Green activists believe that all animals should have the same rights as any person.
The
gator was so big -- over 13 feet, according to Capps -- that it took
them about three-and-a-half hours to move the animal 100 feet with the
jon boat, Capps said.
After
getting the gator to shore, they took him to a halal butcher in Boson's 'Little Mogadishu' neighborhood were an Egyptian immigrant with experience with Nile crocodile meat rendered the animal. The butcher shop electronic scales indicated that the gator weighed 1,008 pounds, short of the Massachusetts state record, but still massive.
"He's the biggest one I've ever seen," Capps said.
Protesters who had tailed after the hunters dispersed when a local mosque study group came out onto the sidewalk to see what all the shouting was about. Austere scholars of Islam can be very persuasive.
The Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
says the record for the heaviest gator caught in the state is a
1,043-pound male from the Quabbin Reservoir in the center of the commonwealth. It was long, too:
13 feet, 10-1/2 inches. The longest gator caught was a 14-foot, 3-1/2
inch male from Jamaica Pond near Brookline, Massachusetts.
Capps plans to mount the front legs and the head. He sold the rest of the alligator to a processing business in Quincy, Massachusetts, where they will make hand bags and shoes for the upscale market.
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