An alligator killed a 69-year-old woman before “guarding” her body, police in South Carolina have confirmed, marking the second such fatality in less than 12 months.
Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office was called to a lagoon bordering a golf course in the Spanish Wells community on Hilton Head at about 9.30am yesterday.
There they found the woman, a community resident, apparently unresponsive at the edge of the water.
The sheriff’s office explained: “Rescue efforts were made and an alligator appeared and was guarding the woman, interrupting emergency efforts.
“The gator was safely removed from the area and the woman’s body was recovered.”
Deputies established that the woman had been taking her dog for an early-morning walk when the alligator struck. Her dog was found nearby, unharmed, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Major Angela Viens, a sheriff’s office spokesperson later said.
The Beaufort County Coroner’s Office is scheduled to perform an autopsy on the woman.
The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR) tweeted that its “biologists and officers are responding” to the incident.
South Carolina had never recorded a fatal alligator attack until seven years ago, but since then, there have been several, most recently on August 15, 2022, when an 88-year-old Sun City woman was killed by an alligator at a lagoon near her home.
In 2020, deputies killed an alligator after it fatally attacked a 58-year-old woman on Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
A year earlier, a man was found dead, also on Kiawah Island with what authorities concluded were alligator bite marks, although they were unable to establish how he actually died.
A 45-year-old woman was killed by an alligator in 2018 while walking her dog on Hilton Head Island.
Finally, in 2016, a 90-year-old woman died in similar circumstances while walking near the Charleston nursing home where she lived.
According to the DNR’s website, the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) is the only crocodilian native to South Carolina.
Although once listed as a federally endangered species, populations have rebounded and the alligator’s status has been upgraded to threatened due to its similarity of appearance to the threatened American crocodile.
Populations of alligators in South Carolina have thrived to the extent that the DNR instituted a hunting season in 2008.
American alligators can live to be more than 60 years old, reach lengths in excess of 13 feet, and can weigh up to 1,000lbs.
