Alligators You’d be hard pressed to find a single Tampa Bay resident who is not aware that you shouldn’t walk your small, delicious dog next to a retention pond, or that there’s a decent chance even an indoor pool has a murder log floating in it. Most importantly, everyone knows that you should jam your thumbs in the eye sockets or nostrils of a gator if you ever find yourself snapped up in a death roll. It’s basically the “Stop, Drop and Roll” of Florida. Credit: Photo via Adobe
A 59-year-old Hillsborough County man died last night after his vehicle struck an 11-foot alligator laying in the road.

According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, John Hopkins car struck the alligator at approximately 12:30 a.m., while driving eastbound on C.R. 672, about two miles west of C.R. 39 in Lithia.

“The front of Hopkins’ vehicle struck an 11-foot alligator, which was in the roadway. The vehicle veered off the road and overturned into a ditch on the north side of the road,” says a statement from the agency. “A motorist passing by in the area noticed the car in the ditch and called 911.

Officials responded to the accident and pronounced Hopkins dead on the scene. The alligator was also deceased.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, gators are more active during mating season, which runs from April through June depending on temperatures.

Florida has roughly 1.3 million gators, and they can be found in all 67 counties. However, if you see one where it’s not supposed to be, contact the FWC’s Nuisance Alligator Hotline at 866-FWC-GATOR (866-392-4286).

Related Stories

This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2022.

Colin Wolf has been working with weekly newspapers since 2007 and has been the Digital Editor for Creative Loafing Tampa since 2019. He is also the Director of Digital Content Strategy for CL's parent...