Here Is an Alligator Trying to Eat a Drone

Update: Well, Wemhoff deleted the video almost instantly. The still image will have to do for now.  

There's no real need to fly a drone a couple feet above the jaws of a waiting alligator, but damn if it doesn't create one hell of a video.

The potential disturbance of wildlife is one of the reasons why the National Parks Service has banned drones in National Parks, and it's something we've touched on before: Where's the line between merely using drones to monitor wildlife and using it to bother a moose or an alligator?

On the conservation side, you've got drones being used to look for poachers and to monitor whales and dolphins. On the other side, you've got random drone encounters with wildlife.

Videographer Scott Wemhoff said he happened upon the alligator while he was in Houston filming a video about paintball:

"I've never seen a gator before in the wild … I wanted to see if I could get some cool video of such a large animal. I paid close attention the the gator's every move so I could escape in time," he told me. "Once I saw it perch up for an attack…I quickly backed off and ended up with some cool footage!"

From the looks of it, Wemhoff came a foot or two away from learning an expensive lesson about how high alligators can jump. I'm not sure of the nutritional value of a hunk of plastic and electronic components, but it probably doesn't have a whole lot of vitamins.