Escaped gator Chucky caught in Alabama
(CNN) -- It was man against beast for a three-hour struggle, but in the end, Chucky the alligator was back in custody, five days after escaping from an Alabama zoo during Hurricane Ivan.
"We are elated!" said Patti Hall, director of the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo.
Chucky, measuring 12 feet long and weighing more than 1,000 pounds, was finally captured Tuesday night by the Alligator Retrieval Team from Gatorland in Orlando, Florida.
The team had been brought in to Gulf Shores, Alabama, especially to track down the huge reptile.
Tim Williams, who calls himself the dean of gator wrestling, led the team that brought Chucky's freedom to an end.
"I feel like we were the crusaders who went out and conquered the dragon and we're coming back to the village all beaten up," he said.
Williams said his team had spotted a leopard frog late Tuesday night and were preparing to catch it when one man saw Chucky nearby in a ditch filled with water.
The alligator went under the water and did not surface when prodded with sticks, so Williams and another man ended up swimming across the ditch to try to goad the gator into showing himself.
When Chucky finally surfaced, Williams got a noose around his neck and the other men secured the giant reptile with rope and a whole roll of black electrical tape.
Williams told CNN's "Live From" that the team and more than 25 law enforcement officers then pulled Chucky across 17 acres of swamp land to the zoo, where Wednesday he was placed in his newly repaired pen.
"He is so happy. He's swimming in the middle of his pond right now," Hall said in a phone interview.
Chucky was one of several alligators that escaped from the zoo when storm surges from Hurricane Ivan demolished the facility last Thursday.
Officials had warned residents in the region to be cautious, warning that Chucky had been fed by humans for years and could approach people if he saw them.
"If you're a male -- say 6-foot-5 -- and he wants you, you're his," zoo general manager Kate Raymond said last week.
Some of the other escaped alligators weren't as lucky as Chucky. They were shot by authorities so they wouldn't harm humans trying to clean up the debris.
Before the storm, the zoo evacuated many of the animals that couldn't swim. Some deer, chickens and the alligators were left behind.
Chucky's been the main attraction at the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo for more than a decade. He was brought to the park 14 years ago after being found nearby. Officials believe he could be as old as 35.
