Quote Originally Posted by CajunRider
Never had any [living in NYS], but my understanding is that as long as you don't feed them, they're pretty much good neighbors- until [as CR said] they get mature- then they're more terror-torial and protective of their young too...[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Right around the time I left FLA, there where three gator attacks on people. One was on a canal out in the "Everglades." The first report from the people involved said they were cleaning weeds from the prop. I called Bovine Scat. I had spent many a day patrolling that canal from start to finish, it goes from western Broward county down to Dade county, that there is very little weed in that canal. Eventually, the bozo that was bit by a gator admitted he was trying to wrestle with the gator, which I took to mean he was hand feeding.
MORON.
Once had a little chat with a mother and her 5ish year old daughter. They were standing right next to the water edge looking at a large gator. The gator was looking right back at them.
That gator was expecting to be fed because that is what people would do even though it is against the law, and for very good reasons. I am guessing that the the gator was a good 8-10 feet long based on its head size and when I told mom how large the gator was, how fast it could move, and her daughter was right size for a gator meal, mom backed both of them away from the water edge.
The other gator attack was on a man who said he slipped off the sea wall and there just happened to be gators where he fell. Turned out he had been feeding the gators and fell off the wall which explains why the gators were down below. He said he escaped by pulling a Marlin Perkins and poking a gator in they eye.
The third attack killed a boy on a river. Just by happenstance we went kayaking down that river shortly after the boy was killed. As we where putting in our kayaks, a trapper was loading up his boat to get the gator. We eventually saw the gator and he was maybe 8 feet long but not real wide. Got a fuzzy photo of that gator. The report said the family had stopped at a sand bar for lunch and the gator killed the kid....
Now, this was on a river. River is a big word and eventually this river does live up to the name river but where the boy was killed the river was a little itty, bitty creek. My kayak is 17 feet long and where the boy was killed the "river" was no wider than my kayak is long. The sand bar was also not very big maybe 10 feet by 20 feet. The water at this point of the river was crystal clear and the sand bank was about 2-3 feet below the grade of the land. We found it hard to understand how the gator could not be seen since we easily saw him where the attack took place. I don't know how one could miss seeing the gator which makes one wonder if the gator was being fed when it killed the boy.
Gators can be territorial, especially during nesting season. My FIL was once in a canoe in a eastern NC. He was on a river or lake and noticed a small water way which he followed. The water way opened up into a large pond/lake which was likely loaded with fish. The problem was the master of that lake was a monster gator sun bathing on the bank. My FIL said the hair went up on the back of his neck and he got the heck out of there as fast as he could go. That gator scared the hoo hoo out of him. :shocked: My FIL was a big man, 6'2 or 6'4", was an avid outdoors man, and part of the first group of Green Berets. Not a man easily scared but that monster gator was something else.
Later,
Dan
