Alligator encounter on the Outer Banks causes a stir in small fishing village

WANCHESE — A weekend alligator encounter in a small Outer Banks fishing village has caused widespread curiosity following photographs of the event posted on social media.

One photo taken Friday, July 28, shows Wanchese resident Rachel Midgette barefoot, in jean shorts and smiling, holding barehanded in front of her the alligator estimated to be about 4.5 feet long.

“I’ve seen them before when we go to Florida or at the aquarium, but I’d never seen one in the wild in Wanchese before,” Midgette, 20, said.

Her cousin, Maison Weaver, took the photograph close to midnight, right before Midgette moved the alligator off Pugh Road, where it had been lying. Both young women said they were scared it might get hit.

“It was very chill; it didn’t want to move at all,” Weaver, 24, said. She worried about both the safety of the animal and of youth whom she said ride bicycles and golf carts “at all hours” on the unlit street.

Weaver had been driving back from work to her home on Pugh Road about 11:45 p.m., saw what she thought was a dead possum, then called Midgette when she realized what it was. Growing up, she’d heard stories of alligator sightings at a pond in Wanchese by her best friend’s dad’s house — which she swam in — but “we had always thought it was kind of a myth,” Weaver said.

“She told me I wouldn’t believe her, and I probably wouldn’t if I didn’t see it,” Midgette recalled. “That was exciting.”

Midgette said the alligator was “pretty calm” and that she didn’t feel fear picking it up, which she laughingly attributed to adrenaline.

“He was more on the right side of the road, but facing the left — and it was a more wooded area over there, so I figured it would probably be better for him,” Midgette said.

John Beardsley, a Dare County lieutenant with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said he understands her actions, but advises people to not handle alligators.

“While her intentions are great, and she did a good job of getting him off there and bringing attention to the alligator population that we have in Dare County, what we would encourage people to do is not interact with them.”

In other counties, when alligators have bitten people, it’s because people initiated contact, trying to handle them, he noted; and catching, harassing, or hunting alligators isn’t allowed. While several counties have a permitted alligator hunting season, Dare County does not.

If alligators are ever in danger or become a nuisance, he said people should call the NC Wildlife Commission dispatch at 1-800-662-7137.

This was the first report Beardsley has had of an alligator in the inhabited area of Wanchese, a fishing community on the southern end of Roanoke Island. He said the state’s largest alligator population is in its southeastern part — not northeastern. The largest nearby population is in Hyde County, but he said there is nonetheless a population that lives in Dare County.

A team of university researchers captured, tagged and released “a very large alligator” who was residing in Kitty Hawk several years ago, and another alligator was seen out on the sand at the beach, “which is not where he wanted to be, I promise.”

Beardsley noted, “They can move considerable distances while they’re looking for new territory, and that’s probably what happened with him.”

As for the alligator in Wanchese, Weaver said her mom’s friend saw it heading to a ditch off Baumtown Road, so “we think it’s gone back to its originated place.”

She took her Friday night photographs of the alligator in front of longtime resident Jennifer “Jinky” Davenport’s home, who was also previously skeptical of alligators being in the village. Davenport said her two adult grandsons learned from friends about the alligator and came to see it, then called her after midnight on Friday.

“I thought they were joking me, and I just said, ‘Don’t kill it’…and I went back to sleep,” she said.

Since the sighting, people have been driving slowly down her road “looking for the alligator,” and stopping to ask her about it when she’s in her yard.

“It has really gotten a lot of people interested in it,” Davenport said.

Prior to the sighting, something had been eating her pumpkins and bedding down in her husband’s black-eyed Susans.

“We removed all the pumpkins from that bed because something was laying and messing up my husband’s flowerbed, and you don’t do that,” Davenport said.

When she saw the photos on Facebook, she was surprised at both the alligator’s existence and at Midgette’s fearlessness.

“She’s tough,” Davenport said with a laugh. “She’ll have a lot of marriage proposals from it.”

Corinne Saunders, corinne.saunders@virginiamedia.com