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William Pugh and Custom Pool employees work to wrangle the alligator out of the Ulmer’s pool last Friday.
Neighbor ropes gator out of swimming pool
Published Friday, July 24, 2009
NATCHEZ — When Leah Ulmer and her children returned from their beach vacation last week, they had a strange invoice from their neighbor, William Pugh.
The bill listed prices owed for a net, a length of rope, a walking fee and a life endangerment fee.
While his invoice was a joke, his removal of a 6-foot alligator from the Ulmer’s swimming pool wasn’t.
Last Friday, swimming pool cleaners from Custom Pools were on the job at the Ulmer’s Cherrybark Lane home when they saw something out of the ordinary.
The Custom Pools employees knocked on the Ulmers door and began speaking with their housekeeper. Meanwhile, this got the attention of the next-door neighbors, the Pughs.
William and his wife, Kelly, and their children soon flocked around the pool to see the gator swimming along the edge and diving to the bottom of the pool.
William, who used to rope cows, decided to lead the charge in removing the alligator.
“He did it like you’re supposed to rope a cow,” Kelly said.
A Custom Pool employee worked a pole in tandem with William to fish the gator out.
“When (William) started pulling him out, (the gator) started rolling and when they got him on the ground, he opened his mouth and started hissing,” Kelly said.
Meanwhile, Kelly called Leah Ulmer to break the news.
“I thought it was a joke,” Ulmer said.
Kelly said she had to repeat that there was an alligator in Ulmer’s pool several times before Ulmer actually began to believe it.
“All the commotion in the background, I knew it wasn’t a joke,” Ulmer said.
Ulmer said in the nine years she has lived in the U.S. 61 South neighborhood she has never once seen an alligator.
“Our property backs up to a creek, and we’re right next to Beau Pré and they have some water there,” she said. “My husband says when it’s really dry (alligators) travel looking for water.”
The Ulmers had only built the pool three weeks prior and though both houses on either side of the Ulmers’ house have pools, they were the chosen ones.
“We were just the lucky ones, I guess,” Ulmer said.
No one knows how long the alligator was in the pool.
“He could have been there a couple of days,” she said. “We left on a Wednesday and this was Friday.”
Ulmer said she is thankful for her neighbors.
“That’s what living in the South is all about,” Ulmer said. “We had a bunch of gentlemen here who could rope him and net him and tape his mouth shut.”
And as for the aftermath, Ulmer said it’s still quite chilling to know an alligator has been in their pool.
It’s something the Ulmer children — ages 16, 13, 8 and 4 — are left to ponder.
“There’s been a lot of squealing and screaming,” Ulmer said. “We’ve been looking at the pictures and they’ve said ‘Oh my gosh mom, what if we had jumped in the dark?’”
Kelly said she’s been asking herself the same question.
“If one of (Ulmer’s) kid’s had jumped in the water — (the gator) was swimming down in the deep, it would get really close to the edge and you couldn’t see it,” Kelly said.
And as far as her pool goes, she’ll be watching it extra closely.
She said after the alligator was caught, it was released back into the wild nearby.
Those who saw the gator guessed it weighed approximately 150 pounds.
Comments
Posted by WhiteOleander (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 12:22 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Wow! Holy Cow! I have a pool, and this makes me MIGHTY nervous! Funny (but a little scary!) story!!!!
Posted by juju (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 12:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Be careful of snakes too!
Posted by stateofnatchez (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 3:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If an alligator is less than eight feet in length, it poses almost no danger to humans unless it is fed or harassed. Even larger alligators are less dangerous to humans than is generally thought if a few safety rules are followed. First and foremost: Never, ever feed an alligator! Feeding alligators causes them to associate people with food and to lose their natural wariness of humans. Not only is feeding alligators dangerous, it is illegal. And don't think you are not doing the alligator a favor by feeding it--usually an alligator that has been fed will begin seeking out people and has trouble differentiating hands from handouts. That alligator has become a nuisance and will probably have to be removed--generally "a fed gator is a dead gator."
Observe alligators but never approach or harass them. Alligator nests are usually found deep in the marsh or swamp but if you do come upon a nest, get away from it. Female alligators, which are usually much less aggressive than males can be quite dangerous when defending their nests.
Watch your pets. While alligators don't generally see people as food, they are quite fond of dogs. Eating dogs is a fairly natural thing for an alligator to do. We usually treat an alligator that has eaten a pet as a nuisance gator, but that is probably not quite fair to the gator.
Alligators are a natural and important component of aquatic ecosystems in Mississippi, and if you live in or visit these areas you will probably see them. Observe and enjoy, but always follow the alligator safety rules. Visit your MDWFP district offices or state parks where alligators are present for a "Be Gator Safe" brochures with more information on being safe around alligators.
----> taken from http://www.outdoors.net/site/features/fe...
Posted by freedom42 (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 7:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I hope they realize that releasing it "nearby" will allow it to return to the pool. Did they contact the Wildlife and Fisheries people? They could have taken it FAR away.
Posted by Bigfish (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 9:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
freedom42, by calling "Wildlife and Fisheries people" did you mean kill it. That is would be the most likely outcome since it would be considered a nuisance animal.
Catching it themselves and releasing it was the right thing to do. Also
Posted by kpage1 (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 10:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I am quite sure Wildlife and Fisheries wouldn't kill the gator. They are all about preservation of wildlife and would have taken the alligator to a safe reservation.
Posted by lowrider (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 10:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Hmm, they seem to have done this with ease. Wonder if they could capture the wifey too, she has teeth, a bad temper, and enjoys water too.
Posted by jlmorris (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 11:41 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Lowrider, I hope your better half does not read the comment section.
However, I think it would be called kidnapping instead of relocation.
Posted by destiny (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 12:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This is a good reason why they make fences.
Posted by gottabehappy (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 1:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree destiny! This could have been someone's child instead.
Posted by freedom42 (anonymous) on July 24, 2009 at 7:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There are no fences allowed in Beau Pre other than ornamental iron ones. I'm not sure about Southern Oaks or The Meadows, but state law requires a fence around a pool for safety. Bigfish, a gator that size would have been relocated, not destroyed.
Posted by Kaintuck (anonymous) on July 25, 2009 at 8:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think this story meant to read "the alligator weighed approximately 50 lbs".... Mississippi takes a lot of heat about being Number 1 in obesity, but please, there is NO way a 6 foot gator would ever weigh that much; an eight footer, yeah, but a six footer - not even in Mississippi!
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