{"id":938881,"date":"2026-07-16T13:15:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/938881\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:15:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:15:27","slug":"alligator-spotted-on-highway-521-in-sumter-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/938881\/","title":{"rendered":"Alligator spotted on Highway 521 in Sumter County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) &#8211; A member of the WIS team spotted an alligator crawling its way across Highway 521 in Sumter County Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Traffic was momentarily paused till the gator finished its path across the road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Alligators are prevalent across South Carolina and are more of a common sighting in the summer months. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dnr.sc.gov\/wildlife\/alligator\/pdf\/AlligatorBrochure.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Carolina Department of Natural Resources<\/a> (SCNDR), juvenile alligators move around frequently for food and to avoid larger males.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In March 2024<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wistv.com\/2024\/03\/19\/father-son-spot-alligator-columbia-canal-riverfront-park\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">, a father and son spotted an alligator at the Columbia Canal<\/a> and Riverfront Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">If you come across any alligators, SCDNR has some basic knowledge to follow.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list | article-list\">\n<li>Don\u2019t dispose of fish or food scraps in water<\/li>\n<li>Never harass, capture, or handle an alligator.<\/li>\n<li>Be responsible for people and pets in your care.<\/li>\n<li>Maintain awareness any time you are in or near water.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Feel more informed, prepared, and connected with WIS. For more free content like this, subscribe to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wistv.com\/newsletter\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">email newsletter<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wistv.com\/page\/apps\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">download our apps<\/a>. Have feedback that can help us improve? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wistv.com\/2026\/07\/15\/alligator-spotted-highway-521-sumter-county\/mailto:wis-webproducers@gray.tv?subject=[please%20include%20the%20article%27s%20headline%20here]\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WIS. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) &#8211; A member of the WIS team spotted an alligator crawling its way across Highway&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":938882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[14879,378069,50,159,252270,67,132,68,837,378070],"class_list":["post-938881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-alligator","tag-highway-521","tag-news","tag-science","tag-sumter-county","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildlife","tag-wis-news-10"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116929844226660371","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}