A Massachusetts woman, Maryellen Mara-Christian was on an alligator hunting trip in South Carolina this week "hoping for a 10-footer," when she saw a 1,025 pound gator swimming. She shot it and severed its spinal cord with a knife.

Mara-Christian was on a hunting trip with her husband, "and I just lucked out to may have gotten one of the biggest ones people have ever seen." According to the AP:

Alligator hunting is part hunting, part fishing. Hunters use a regular fishing pole with a heavy line and a large snatch hook. They try to get several hooks in the alligator to get him close to the boat so they can shoot or harpoon them. It is illegal in South Carolina for a hunter to shoot a free swimming alligator.

It took about two hours for Mara-Christian's party to secure the gator before they could shoot it. But the .22-caliber gun they had wasn't powerful enough to put the animal down so Mara-Christian used a knife to sever the animal's spinal cord at the base of its head.

Not sure what the point of hunting gators is, but yeah, nice work, I guess.

[AP]