Why did the alligator cross the road?

...Certainly not because he was predicting his eventual demise at the wheels of a drunk driver!

Driving to work (The Center for Birds of Prey) one morning, my co-workers and I found a great surprise in the road...

I would later find out from a friend in the area that a very inebriated man driving a Jeep was driving home from Awendaw Green the night before and soon found himself in a ditch. My friend saw his headlights and went to investigate. The man was stumbling about begging my friend to not call the police, then noted "...I think I hit somethin' back there.." Said friend goes to investigate and finds a writhing young adult American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) that was a bit thin but all of 7 feet long. Realizing it was dead (for the most part), he and the drunk man pulled it off of the road and went about pulling the Jeep from the ditch.

The following morning, my co-workers and I (who had no idea of what had happened the night before) found the alligator back in the middle of the road, but now no longer moving. We pulled it from the road and hauled it into a truck, taking it to the Vulture Restaurant to be consumed by the local vulture population that we feed (in an effort to prevent them from being hit by cars).

Now, I being the Herp fan/Biology major that I am decided to do what I could to get this specimen treated and the skull preserved (besides, he would start smelling pretty bad before the vultures could even get past the thick, armored skin). So I phoned DNR (Department of Natural Resources), obtained the permit for keeping him, and at the end of the day we loaded the poor animal (approximately 165lbs) into my trunk where I promptly deposited him at my local taxidermist's home. He prepared the skull "European Style" and it now sits proudly on my coffee table. Some think the whole thing a bit strange but I rather love it. I couldn't bear to hunt one of the amazing animals so by preserving his skull, I am honoring his death so that it was not in vain.

At any rate, I imagine that the alligator was crossing the road in search of another body of water. The day we found him, I took a walk to a very large pond that was about half of a mile from where he was struck only to find another alligator of about the same size happily swimming about. I was able to take pictures through my binocular lens. Being that it was mid-March when this came about, there was likely some dispute over territory and our poor roadside fellow lost out in more ways than one. The area is located in the Francis Marion National Forest about 1-2 miles from Bull's Bay, in a mix of forest and sandy substrate.

(Channing Derry, SC)

PS - I don't go around picking up roadkill all of the time or anything, this guy was just too cool to NOT get. Hahaha.