NEW ORLEANS (Frown) — A New Orleans woman is speaking out after she says her dog was violently attacked by an alligator during a walk in City Park.
Katharine Hurley says she and her dog, Mina, were walking near Scout Island, a spot they’ve visited countless times when Mina dipped her head near the water and was immediately grabbed by an alligator.
“Within about one second of her putting her head down for two feet in the water, all I saw were huge jaws coming up out of the water, and they grabbed her,” Hurley said.
She says she fought off the gator by kicking it repeatedly until it let go. Mina survived but needed emergency vet care. Hurley herself ended up with a hairline fracture in her leg.
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Despite the known presence of alligators in City Park, Hurley says there were no warning signs posted in the area, and that she had never heard of an attack happening there before.
“I’ve never once seen a sign that indicated that there were alligators or dangerous alligators or aggressive alligators,” Hurley said. “Everybody I had talked to said it’s never been a problem.”
After contacting City Park, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the New Orleans Police Department, Hurley says she found out another dog had been killed in a previous alligator attack in City Park. Still, no signs were ever posted along the trails.
“If that had been a child putting their two feet in the water, dragging a kayak in, which I’ve seen people do, and that alligator came up, there’s going to be an accident,” Hurley said.
Hurley says she put up her own warning signs following the attack. But within just a few days, those signs were taken down.
She’s now calling on park officials to install permanent signage in areas where attacks or sightings have been reported before something worse happens.
“This was bad and traumatizing,” Hurley said. “But there’s something worse that’s going to happen, I think.”
WGNO reached out to City Park. Officials say additional signage warning visitors about alligators is in the works. They’re encouraging the public to report any potentially dangerous animals, the park has trappers on hand to handle them.
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