12-foot alligator's stomach held dog collar tags from decades ago, SC butcher shop says
The mysterious disappearance of multiple hunting dogs was solved Thursday when a hunter hauled a 12-foot alligator into a South Carolina wild game meat plant. Inside the massive reptiles stomach were the undigested tags from five dog collars, according to Cordrays butcher shop in Ravenel, just west of Charleston. Cordrays staff also found: 1 bullet jacket, 1 spark plug, loads of turtle shells, and several bobcat claws.
Two of the tags were legible and one phone number still worked, the shop wrote on Facebook. The owner said he had (hunted the same area) 24 years ago and those were from his deer dogs. It definitely ate them (the dogs), shop co-owner Claudia Cordray said Friday. It was an old animal, 50 to 70 years old.
The 445-pound alligator was killed on private land by hunter Ned McNeely, according to the butcher shop. He not only wanted the meat harvested, but he is also having a life size mount of the alligator created by Cordrays Taxidermy operation. Cordrays handles just over 100 alligators a year at an operation that turns wild game into sausage or jerky. It also offers taxidermy services.
I bet that gator wondered why he always had a heartburn, a woman said.
https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/state/south-carolina/article250548389.html