NATCHEZ — The 9-foot-10-inch surprise in Claude “Buck” Pintard’s front yard Sunday was enough to get him praying.

“I was at home with my granddaughter and grandson, and one of them wanted to go to Walmart, so I said, ‘Let’s go,’” Pintard said. “We started down the hill, and it was an alligator I’m looking at right in front of me.”

Pintard, who lives on Laurel Hill Drive in The Hills subdivision, had been up and down his driveway all day long, he said. But the two hours he stayed off the asphalt strip were apparently long enough for his visitor to claim it as the perfect napping spot.

“I backed up the van and parked,” Pintard said. “I immediately said to the grand kids, ‘Someone is trying to put a fake alligator in my yard.’

“Then I saw its back legs move and I said, ‘Nope, that’s the real thing.’”

Pintard called his son, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

With a firm warning to stay away from the reptile, Pintard and family waited for authorities to arrive. Even the cat kept his distance, daughter-in-law April Pintard said.

By the time the proper authorities with the proper equipment had arrived, approximately two hours had passed and it was nearing 7 p.m., Pintard said.

“The trapper had a loop and looped around (the alligator’s) neck,” Pintard said. “He pulled on the rope and (the alligator) started raising hell and rolling and rolling and rolling.”

Eventually the trapper — Don Hynum of Port Gibson — was able to tie the animal’s mouth and legs and move the animal into his pickup truck.

“He was a good, big, mature male, probably 200-300 pounds,” Hynum said. “Why he was there? Who knows. They just go walking.”

Hynum works under a contract with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. When they receive calls about alligators in this area, they usually call him, he said.

His work comes in spurts, he said, but he’s already been to Adams County two or three times this year.

“I may go a month without a call, or a may get half a dozen in a week,” he said.

Since alligators have been protected from hunting for years in Mississippi, the population has grown a bit out of control, Hynum said.

“There are so many of them,” he said. “If you have a body of water, odds are if you don’t have one, you will have one.”

But Pintard’s house isn’t near water, and sits on five acres of dry land. It’s not free of wildlife though, he said.

“I have deer and turkey,” Pintard said. “And I have a 6-foot rattlesnake I’ve been hunting behind the house.”

With an alligator out front and a snake out back, Pintard’s prayer was simple Sunday night.

“I said, ‘Lord, you got me in the front and back. Please leave my sides alone.’”

The alligator removed from Pintard’s yard was killed, Hynum said, but that’s not standard procedure. Alligators under 8-feet long and in good health are usually released to the wild.

But the alligator in Pintard’s yard was large and had a previous injury — it had been shot, some time ago, in the snout. As a result, the animal wasn’t breathing properly.

Unfortunately, many alligator-people encounters end with gunfire, Hynum said, mainly because people don’t know what else to do.

“A lot of people don’t realize this (trapping) service is available,” Hynum said. “A lot of folks just shoot them. Utilizing this service would save a lot of (alligators).”

Anyone who spots an alligator on their property and wants it removed can call the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries district office at 601-835-3050. They will likely then contact a trapper like Hynum.