Alabama family catches record-setting, 1,000-pound alligator

Alabama family catches record-setting, 1,000-pound alligator

What did you do this weekend? Hang out with your friends and family? Maybe get outside for a few hours to enjoy the sunshine?

Whatever you did to fill those 48 hours, it can't possibly compare to how these Alabama families spent their free time.

It's gator-hunting season in Alabama and one brave group — Mandy and John Stokes as well as Kevin Jenkins and his two teenage kids — scored the jackpot, pulling a 1,000-pound alligator from the water in south Alabama on Saturday.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The thing was so enormous that when biologists attempted to weigh the 15-foot beast the first time, it destroyed the winch assembly that was used to hoist your average gator. A backhoe lift had to be brought in for the weigh-in. Officially, the alligator came in at 1,011.5 pounds, easily beating the 2010 record — a gator 13.4 feet long and a mere 742 pounds.

For more jaw-dropping photos of the new champion, check out The Associated Press.

Explore More

Lauren Hansen produces The Week’s podcasts and videos and edits the photo blog, Captured. She also manages the production of the magazine's iPad app. A graduate of Kenyon College and Northwestern University, she previously worked at the BBC and Frontline. She knows a thing or two about pretty pictures and cute puppies, both of which she tweets about @mylaurenhansen.