Text of story copy and pasted for posterity...story by Bill Hankins
Seven-foot young male alligator found
By Bill Hankins
The Paris News
Published June 15, 2008
When Ray and Sherry Ball sat down on their porch early Friday, as they do almost every day, they were in for a surprise.
Sitting just at the edge of the large farm pond only a few yards from their door was an alligator.
They had noticed in the past few days one of the two geese that lived on the pond was missing, and when they spotted the alligator, it had its eyes on the second goose.
Sherry rushed to get her three dogs and seven cats in the house in fear for their lives.
The Balls live on Farm to Market 1499, near Caviness, and just north of Paris, in an area in which it is highly unusual to find alligators.
Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens Darla Barr and Bryan Callihan were called, and in turn, they called in state contract nuisance hunter Mark McDonald to rid the pool of the gator.
McDonald lives in Hawkins, and while the more than a dozen people who came to see the alligator waited for him to make the two-hour drive, the gator slowly maneuvered around the pond as if to give everybody a show.
When McDonald arrived, he baited the pond to try to catch the alligator.
Hours later, he decided the animal was not going to take the bait, and the decision was made to shoot the animal and remove him from the pond.
Early Saturday, those chosen to shoot the gator lined up on the bank of the pond and fired more than 15 shots.
Then the big chore of dragging the pond for the body took a few hours more.
When they finally recovered the alligator, it was seven feet and 10 inches long, a young male.
McDonald told Ball the gator was big enough to eat a small child or a dog up to about 40 pounds, and was a dangerous animal.
We found an alligator nest on Sanders Creek last year, Callihan said.
Ray Balls property is flanked by Pine Creek and Crooked Creek and Lake Crook is just 1,000 feet away.
Game wardens told Ball they had captured a four-foot alligator off Sugarhill Road eight months ago, and a 14-footer was captured near Chicota a few years ago, but alligator sightings are relatively rare in Lamar County.
It rained five inches here last night, and the bottoms filled up on my property, Ball said. I was afraid it had slipped out into the bottoms area, and we would never be able to catch it.
We are not going to be so unforgiving in the future, and we are going to be more watchful around here, Ball said. This was definitely a dangerous situation, and even one of my horses had a limp that could have been caused by the alligator.
