PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. – A Pinellas County woman is calling on leaders to make changes at a public park where an alligator snatched and killed her beloved dog.
The dog's owner, Sue Fortenbery, told WFTS that she was walking her Jack Russell terrier, Bolt, at Joe's Creek Greenway Park on Sunday when he got out of his collar to chase a rabbit. The dog slipped through a hole in a fence, and the gator snatched him.
"The screams is what you can't stop hearing, him yelping," a weeping Fortenbery said.
County leaders said they do not plan to remove the gator from the park because it is not considered a nuisance, and they need a better description of it to have it trapped.
They also pointed out that the gator's enclosure is fenced with signs, but Fortenbery said there are several sizeable holes in the park's fences.
"If the fence wouldn't be open like this, he couldn't have got through and the gator couldn't have got him," she said.