Large Alligator Wows Crowd At College Campus In Mississippi

A college campus in Mississippi had a large, scaly visitor on Thursday. An alligator turned heads on the campus of the Alcorn School of Nursing in Natchez, Mississippi, lying completely still as a crowd gathered around it at a safe distance. Nobody was hurt, the gator was eventually safely removed and Alcorn students got to see something unusual.

The 9-foot beast was spotted by a campus security guard on a walk on Thursday, the Natchez Democrat reported. On the hot southern day, it was apparently just hanging out in the shade near the nursing campus.

Other people eventually noticed and a crowd accumulated nearby, maintaining a distance of about 40 feet away from the large reptile. There was initially speculation that it was dead due to the Mississippi heat as it was completely dormant for a while.

However, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks arrived at the scene and found that theory to be untrue. Two officers tried putting a rope around its neck to drag it away from the bush, which caused the alligator to wake up and hiss at them. It apparently put up a fight for a little while before one officer subdued it and held its jaw shut.

Whether the alligator was lost, looking for a friend, or just trying to get an education, it was ultimately an unwelcome guest on the Alcorn campus. The Wildlife and Fisheries officers loaded it onto their truck and removed it from the area. You can see a photo of their encounter here.

This is not the first time an alligator made headlines for hanging out on a college campus. “Inside Edition” got footage of an alligator at Florida Gulf Coast University in 2016.

Once close to extinction, the American alligator population is now thriving. They can be found all the way from North Carolina to Texas, according to Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. They pop into human areas from time to time in the south, such as recently when an alligator lounged in the parking lot of a Target store in Florida.