Thank goodness for people like Don Hynum.

Hynum likes doing things most of us would prefer to avoid. He’ll do the job for little or no pay. And he makes house calls up to two hours away.

Hynum, a Port Gibson resident with a full-time job on the side, made just such a house call to Natchez Sunday afternoon.

He brought all his gear — a loop and a pickup truck — and he handled the problem with apparent ease.

Just ask Buck Pintard and family.

Hynum, a licensed agent-trapper, is in the alligator removal business. And he loves it.

“It’s just fun to catch them,” Hynum said Monday, saying he wanted to do something exciting in life, why not sit on alligators?

Sure, Hynum’s passion is one most of the men around us pretend to share as well. Nothing is more manly than gator wrestling, right?

But how many of the men in our lives would actually plop down on a 9-foot-10-inch beast if the opportunity presented itself?

Hynum is experienced. And he comes down our way more often that I’d like to know about.

One recent trip south was to remove and relocate a female alligator who had developed a habit of running toward and snapping at cars, Hynum said.

The female gator built a nest and laid eggs while the waters of the Old River were high. When waters dropped, her nest was close to the roadway.

And like any protective mother, she didn’t want passing traffic near her babies.

But despite her aggressive car attacks, Hynum said the female was relatively easy to handle.

Hynum, who is contracted by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to remove alligators when called, didn’t receive a paycheck for that gator removal though. He doesn’t ever receive a check, per se.

Agent-trappers aren’t paid, but they are allowed to sell the skins of alligators that must be killed.

Yet, Hynum tries to avoid killing alligators when possible, he said.

“I try to relocate most of them,” he said. “For every one I kill, I relocate 10 to 12.”

The 9-foot alligator found in Pintard’s yard in The Hills subdivision was one of the unlucky ones.

Because the animal was already injured and very large, Hynum killed it. But the economy has taken its toll on gator-skin selling as well, and Hynum won’t make much money from the skin, he said.

The alligator population is on the rise, the trapper said. In fact, it’s practically out-of-control.

So it won’t be long until another Natchez resident joins the ranks of Pintard and the Ulmer family, who recently had a gator take a dip in their backyard swimming pool.

“Odds are, if you don’t have (an alligator), you will have one,” Hynum said.

That’s fun news for him, but scary for the rest of us.

But thankfully, God made all sorts, and folks like Hynum will always be around to help.

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.