Jekyll Island gator ‘Captain Hook’ rescued after being hit by car is released back into the wild

JEKYLL ISLAND, Ga. — It’s now been around a year since the young alligator known as “Captain Hook,” was given a 5% chance to live after being found in the middle of the road near Jekyll Island Airport with a broken jaw.

There were also fishing hooks lodged in his stomach, a bullet in his body, and he had been hit by a car.

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Now, “Captain Hook” has been released back into the wild after many surgeries, scans, and multiple months of rehabilitation.

Yank Moore, Director of Conservation for Jekyll Island, told Action News Jax during an interview on Friday that at first, they received two calls that the gator was dead in the middle of the road. That’s before someone realized Captain Hook was alive and suffering, leading to his rescue.

“We collected the animal and it was in very bad shape. I mean, two people thought it was dead before it ultimately got grabbed by our team and brought to the sea turtle center,” Moore said.

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Ultimately, Moore said Captain Hook’s rescue comes as nothing short of a miracle for the creature.

Moore also outlined how gators like Captain Hook are so vital to the Georgia and Florida ecosystems, controlling prey populations and also providing needed shelter to other species.

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“They also provide habitat for other animals. They create burrows, they create wallows, and holes in banks that other species rely on kind of to survive,” Moore said. “Alligators are big toothy critters and get a lot of a lot of bad press. And they, they’re persecuted … it’s [all about] a balance, and making sure that the animals can still coexist in the landscape.”

Before his release, researchers also outfitted Captain Hook with a GPS transmitter to track him weekly with the Jekyll Island conservation team, making sure he stays out of harm’s way for the foreseeable future.

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