Rant about Florida and Alligators

[Bone Daddy]

I wanted to vent about this somewhere and my wife is tired of hearing it, so here it is.  LOL.

 

This is not about the guy who recently made the news for being attacked by a gator while diving for meg teeth in the Myakka river. That has been all over the news feeds and it's been discussed in this forum in another thread.

 

This is about alligators and Floridians in general. In the news today was another case of a person walking their dog near the water's edge during the summer in Florida. In this case, an alligator struck from the pond's edge and bit the woman - it was probably trying to attack her dog. She was bitten on the leg and is expected to make a full recovery. She was (un)lucky.

 

A couple months back it was an older gentleman doing the same thing - a gator grabbed his dog and he fought the gator off to save his dog. It made national news and went viral.

 

These cases happen almost every summer in Florida and there seems to be an uptick since the pandemic started. In the majority of these cases, the state calls in private contractor hunters to remove/kill the alligator. Also, in the majority of these cases, the gator was not being aggressive, it was doing what gators do. People should know better than to walk a dog near the edge of a pond or lake in Florida, especially during the summer, and especially at dusk/dawn. To walk your dog under such circumstances borders on negligence or willfull ignorance. It's dangerous and should be obvious to any reasonable person.

 

I feel badly for the alligator honestly. It's not like he wandered into somebody's swimming pool and tried to snatch their dog or child. The dog-walker went to the gator's home and was dangling bait (the dog) around like they were trolling for gators. The alligator should not be killed for this. In the most recent case the retention pond was known to have gators and there was signage warning of such. In a case like this, the gator should be humanely removed and moved to an alternate location - like an undeveloped swamp in a remote area.

 

Alligators are fascinating animals. They are the closest thing to a dinosaur we will ever get to see in North America. They are beautiful creatures and their behavior is very predictable. And everyone in Florida should be educated about them to prevent these tragic cases were people, pets, and alligators are killed needlessly.

 

For those in the back row : If it's Florida, if it's summer, if it's near a body of water, then it's not a good place to walk your dog. Period.

 

Ok folks, sorry for the rant. I had to get that out. 

 

Now here is a picture of a Peace River dinosaur :

 

 

 

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Bone Daddy

[JamieLynn]

Your rant is well founded. I abhor that we hunt down and destroy the animals that "attack" in their own natural environment.  You are in THEIR territory! I saw someone post recently something along the lines of "I have an understanding with sharks- I don't go into their home and they don't come into mine".  And if you do...well, you might get bit.  They are just doing what is in their nature to do. 

[Thomas.Dodson]

I get the feeling most people who hunt cliffs accept the inherent risk as natural; the same should (and to a lot of people it does) apply to snakes, sharks, spiders, gators, etc. Gators are typically human shy in my experience. It's usually problems with walking pets like you mentioned, something that education may just help.

[Top Trilo]

I feel the same way, in Colorado we don't have gators but people do the same thing with large moose and elk. In Rocky Mountain National Park there is a field on the side of the road and during mating season there are always herds of massive elk which attracts herds of people. Many of us sit on a boulder a ways away across the stream so we can still admire them without having to worry about getting attacked. However there are always those couple people that cross the shallow stream to get up close shots as full grown elk compete. I don't understand what getting closer does, if you want close up pictures, get a better camera, its worth a lot less than the life you would risk if an elk perceived your walking over as a challenge. Respect the animals, and don't get close.

[Fossildude19]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.  

[siteseer]

I have visited Florida many times in the past 20 years.  Many lakes and ponds have signs warning about gators.  I first saw signs like that in Temple Terrace (just outside Tampa) and at the University of Florida, Gainesville.  More dogs get attacked than make the news and it's always the little breeds.  I don't get it.  Sometimes, it's a tourist, but most of the time, it is a local and other locals are not sympathetic.  It's simple.  Don't walk your little dog near the water.

[snolly50]

On 6/9/2021 at 1:47 PM, Fossildude19 said:

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.  

 

We have a walking route we take for our daily excursion, while we are on SC's coast. This takes us up the beach and over to a return via a bike trail. The two are linked by a brief jaunt through a residential area. There a small pedestrian bridge is crossed. Invariably, we see a small 'gator there. That's great; but also residents and visitors have taken to "feeding" turtles at that spot. The shellbacks are so conditioned to this largess, if you merely stop on the bridge, scores will pop up and swim over, looking for a handout. Unfortunately, we had noted that a small (3') 'gator had learned of the free ride and had commenced begging as well. We speculated how long it would take for him to obtain a size and habilitation to people before he became a nuisance 'gator or worse. We never found out, because on this trip we found the small fry replaced by a bigger 'gator that was clearly open for business. This dude was 6'+, a size where snolly starts to draw the line regarding proximity. Predictably, the big replacement 'gator was already displaying the approach behavior so ingrained in the previous denizen. Yikes, how long before the 'gators loss of avoidance instinct urges him to dine at the neighborhood's poodle buffet - or worse?

 

snolly's patented estimator of 'gator size: 

 

Viewed from an elevated vantage from at least 10' away - six feet

Viewed while in a kayak -                                                     eight feet

Viewed while swimming -                                                    twelve feet +

 

[hadrosauridae]

Its a complicated topic, but in most cases I lean towards favoring the wildlife.  I too am fascinated by gators, partly because we dont have them where I live.  Every time we travel to the south I always look for them because I want to find one to see myself.  I've only seen one outside of the Louisiana swampboat tour we took, and I definitely stopped in the middle of a half marathon race to get pics!  

 

I also just enjoy wildlife in its natural habitat.  I loved my trip to Yellowstone and seeing Moose (Mooses? Meese? LOL) and Bison up close, but I also respect their territory and their power and I was quite nervous a few times because they were VERY close to the roadway and can be unpredictable.  I saw plenty of people (idiots) walking WAAAAY too close to take pictures.  Too many people just have zero common sense.  99% of animal "attacks" are just animals being animals and stupid people not respecting it.