After nuisance call, Critter Management warns against harassing gators

It's that time of year.

Critter Management nearly trapped its first nuisance alligator of the season on Tuesday, before the 6-foot animal managed to break free and disappear beneath the water in a Hilton Head Island hotel's pond. While the gator has lived for years at 2 Tanglewood Drive -- the site of a Quality Inn since last month -- the business's general manager said he became concerned after witnessing tourists repeatedly feeding, petting and harassing the animal.

The hotel's pond has multiple signs warning people it is against the law to approach or bother alligators, but people were not listening, manager Rob Lewis said.

While Lewis hoped Critter Management could relocate the animal, company owner Joe Maffo said he would have to harvest and destroy it because it no longer fears people and could become aggressive.

Maffo discovered Tuesday morning it had swallowed one of his raw-chicken baited hooks overnight, but the gator somehow escaped before he could bring it out of the water

"It's really, really hard for me to do this part of the job," Maffo said outside the Quality Inn on Tuesday morning, as he scanned the water. "But this is a very dangerous situation. When you feed the alligators, you cost them their life."

Lewis said he noticed the gator as soon as the Quality Inn took over the former site of the Comfort Inn last month. Since then, he and other staff members have called Maffo and law enforcement several times over guests trying to take pictures with it, grabbing its tail and luring it closer with food.

Groups of college athletes have also poked it with baseball bats, Lewis said.

"It's not that I want to harm it. Believe me, we don't," he said. "It's a shame."

Maffo said he responded to five calls on Monday for gators on docks and banks, though the animals were not nuisances. On Tuesday afternoon, he responded to the Kroger in Bluffton where a friend had already caught and restrained another gator.

He urges people who spot the animals in unusual places over the next four to six weeks to leave them be, as they are more likely to wander during mating season.

"Just enjoy them from a safe distance," he said

This story was originally published April 22, 2015 at 7:49 AM with the headline "After nuisance call, Critter Management warns against harassing gators."