Two men were arrested in Florida after officials said they captured an alligator and forced it to drink beer.
Timothy Kepke and Noah Osborne were arrested 26 August in Palm City and charged with unlawfully taking an alligator, according to a report by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The commission was alerted at the time to reports of men pouring beer into an alligator’s mouth.
A video shows the two men with the alligator as they force-feed the wild animal alcohol.
Mr Kepke, who reportedly caught the alligator with his bare hands after drinking a few beers, was seen enticing the animal to bite his arm before pouring the liquid down its mouth.
The alligator eventually managed to bite Mr Kepke, according to a female friend of the suspects who witnessed the incident and later told officials she believed the bite was caused by Mr Kepke’s actions.
Mr Kepke and Mr Osborne returned the alligator into the wild shortly after the incident occurred.
Both men were released on bonds earlier this month while awaiting trial.
It was not immediately clear how officials obtained video evidence of the incident, which was first reported by the TC Palm newspaper.
Mr Kepke reportedly claimed that, while he had been drinking at the time, he was not intoxicated when he took the alligator and force-fed it alcohol.
He reportedly admitted taking the alligator and feeding it alcohol when police confronted him at his Florida home on 17 September.
The video of the incident has not yet been publicly released.
