Wildlife officials say two men were cited for possession of American alligator parts without a permit in Palm Beach County, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
Boca Raton Police got a call about a person cleaning an alligator on his front lawn, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission report said.
When FWC officials arrived at the NW 2nd Avenue home of Reid Ireland, 29, he was already speaking with police, the report said. Ireland said that his friend, Justin Wayne Thibodeau, 21, discovered the dead alligator at a park and asked if he could bring it to his house to clean it to use the hide as chaps, according to the FWC.
Ireland reportedly agreed to help him since he knew how to clean them from hunting during regular season.
Ireland also told officials it was an old alligator with saggy skin, no bullet holes or wounds, and not a lot of meat, and that he kept some meat and the head, while Thibodeau took the skin and more meat, the report said.
Officials asked to see the gator and found the head on top of a cooler in the backyard. Ireland also had three one-gallon plastic bags of meat on the side of his house. Inside the cooler was another head that Thibodeau brought to Ireland a few days earlier to bleach, the report said.
Officer Maldonado of the FWC cited Ireland for a misdemeanor for possession of alligator or their parts without a permit.
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FWC officials seized the alligator heads and bags of meat, and proceeded to Thibodeau’s residence on Florida Mango Road in West Palm Beach.
Thibodeau told officials that while fishing at John Prince Park, he found the dead alligator and took it to use the hide to make chaps because he is a bull rider, the report said.
He told officials he brought the second head found in the cooler about three days earlier when he cut it off a gator he found dead on the side of the Turnpike past the Atlantic exit, according to the report.
Officials said they seized the three one-gallon bags of alligator meat he possessed and issued him a citation for possession of American alligator parts.
Although alligator hunting is allowed in the state, it is controlled.
