Gator Mania

Los Angelenos love their 'gator tales! Reid noted this feature by LA Times writer Carol Williamson on the recent spate (if three be a spate) of fatal attacks on Floridians by the large reptiles. As the only one of us living within the range of the American Alligator [A. mississippiensis], I'll do the honors. The story begins:

PEMBROKE PARK, Fla.---- Brian Wood is knee-deep in alligators, a beneficiary of the sudden statewide panic over a creature that has largely lived in peace with the humans who have increasingly invaded its habitat.

Wood's business of skinning and boning the slaughtered beasts has tripled in the last two weeks as freaked-out Floridians have been striking back at the predators after three fatal attacks on women.

Williamson writes a good story and hits all the talking points:

Though alligators are statistically less likely to kill a person than is the family dog, the state's Nuisance Alligator Program hotline has had 200 calls a day since the three incidents in mid-May.

[snip]

While the fear-induced run is a boost for his business, Hardwick professes to be "the No. 1 fan of alligators" and worries some are being labeled nuisances---and thus destined for destruction--- just for hanging around their own watery habitat. There are more than 1 million alligators in Florida, found in every one of its 67 counties.

There's even a little gun-play...

Most worrisome, in the view of wildlife biologists and those charged with public safety, has been the spate of gun owners reaching for their pistols instead of the telephone.

"These are very primitive animals with very small brains, very thick skulls and very tough hides," Hardwick said. "The chances of someone being able to render one dead is slim."

Even veteran hunters such as Wood know the perils of projectiles bouncing off the gators' hard heads.

"If you hit the skull, I've had experience of it ricocheting into the top of my arm. They can move at the last second," said Wood of a coup de grace gone wrong.

Williamson takes this quote from University of Florida zoologist Kent Vliet: "People have a fairly instinctual and primal reaction to large reptiles dragging them into the water."

Steve B. concurs and notes with some wonder, "Three animals that common sense might tell you could be dangerous-- alligators, cougars, and wolves-- were all painted as virtual 'pacifists' in the 60's and 70's."

I can say, as a father of two media-chomping five-year-olds, that today's television and children's literature do not exactly put the teeth back into these predators. Apparently we prefer a kinder, gentler take on the facts of life (and death). Compare Barney the Friendly Lizard King to Kipling's take on the children's story----the one that opens with a wounded tiger chasing a human child.

Probably the difference between real and make-believe animals is inconsequential to most Americans. How many will ever hike through grizzly country? But here we have Florida, the Nation's Water Park and home to hundreds of thousands of giant, meat-eating reptiles. One doesn't need to monger fear or misrepresent the danger to suggest a little caution is OK.

During my stint with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, I worked in the same office suite as the State's alligator program (aka lottery hunt) coordinator, Nick Wiley. I remember Nick as friendly, funny, smart and a player---one of maybe 5 guys in the agency with ambition. He moved on and up even during my short tenure there.

But what I remember best in Wiley's office was a wall-sized map of the state of Florida with all the occupied alligator habitat in red. I mentioned once that it looked like a hell of a lot of habitat to me. He said it is: Every body of water in the state was printed in red.