Three people killed in one week? Am I reading this right? This is extraordinary. for goodness sake, be careful around alligator country!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/14/alligator.attacks.ap/index.html
Three people killed in one week? Am I reading this right? This is extraordinary. for goodness sake, be careful around alligator country!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/14/alligator.attacks.ap/index.html
Wow, that’s some sort of statistical “Cluster”.
Bummer for the women involved.
How does one pull a body out of an alligator’s mouth ???
Quite a few years ago my friends Mike Rabe and Colin McMahon and I were at the Walden School of Cycling in Ocala, Florida. We went for a casual ride before the school to make sure we put our bikes together correctly and see the area. We found a golf course nearby that had a waterway that was *full *of alligators. I wanted to get closer, but Rabe was like, “No way man, those things can move really fast when provoked…”
We left them alone but I thought he was being overly cautious. I guess not…
After high school, my best friend’s parents moved to Savannah GA and lived in this gated community called the Landings. Every summer, I would go down there for a few weeks and visit Dave when he was at home for the summer. The first year down there, the night I got in, we jumped on a golf cart with a cooler of beer and he was showing me the marinas and the golf courses. On one course, we stopped the cart and we looking at the fairway and green, and heard this thrashing noise and this gutteral moan. We turned, and this gator was coming at us. We jumped in the cart and took off. Damn thing nearly ran us down in the cart.
We then went to the marina to get away and drink, and saw a 3 foot sand shark stuck in the mud. It worked itself out, and I even thought about going down to help it, but couldn’t stop thinking about that gator.
with a thousand new people moving to florida everyday this is going to happen more and more,we locals know where to step,if you have a pool of water thats stands there for long you will have a gator in it
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This post is just one further alligator related item freaking me out before the Florida half next weekend. I grew up in Florida and know not to mess with standing bodies of water and for the life of me can’t figure out why I signed up for this race.
A few weeks ago we had to switch pools at swim practice because an alligator escaped from the reptile show and got into our pool (I never thought I’d have swim practice impacted because of an alligator living in Chicago). I opened the Chicago Trib’s website last week and the first link I saw was the story about the woman in South Florida getting killed by an alligator then I turn on the today show this morning and the story is on about the 3 deaths. Now I come to slowtwitch and here’s this story. I’m not a religious person but I’m beginning to wonder if all of this isn’t some kind of sign.
Think of playing with your cats and then adding the weight (maybe 200-500 lbs) and size (7-12 feet) without giving up the speed… first time I witnessed that with another wild animal it was veri scary & impressive.
and, as noted by Randall T, as we continue to encroach on the wildlife ranges we’ll see more of this. Cougars on Vancouver Island (each requires about 100 sq miles of range), bears in the dump, and deer mowing down my veggie garden (one bite out of the top of each tomato plant), racoons in the fish pond, and Coyotes snacking on the neigborhood cats and dogs.
After winning the Final Four this year us Gators are hungry!
I have lived my entire life in Florida and when I was younger we would go out and catch the smaller ones for fun and games. Problem now is that civilazation has encroached on their habitat and often people intentionally or unintentionally feed the gators. Big gators start to associate humans with dinner and this is what will happen. Currently we have a pretty significant drought so when gators habitat dries up they move on looking for food and a new pool to swim in.
I wouldnt be too concerned about the Disney race though. Mickey and his pals are armed and dangerous when it comes to bad publicity. Tastes like chicken…
“As the weather heats up, the alligators’ metabolism increases and they have to eat more,” Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Willie Puz said Sunday. “They might be moving more, but that just shouldn’t mean increased alligator attacks.”
It’s Gobal Warming to blame!
Bring em on! The water in Lake Minneola for my morning swim was awesome this morning. Business as usual here.
Go Noles! Beat the Gators.
I had a dream (nightmare) about alligators last night, so it must be on my mind as well.
Cue dream font…
I was running along and came upon a whole slew of them at this wooden bridge. I had to duck, dodge, and jump over them. I could hear the hiss/growl noise they make and the snapping of their jaws.
Not sure why I’m sharing this, or why any of you should care - I would agree though that the whole thing is a bit creepy.
Especially since the only chance I’d ever have of being attacked by an alligator is if one of the monster-sized ones we have here in NY decided to crawl out of the sewer…hate it when that happens.
Tragedy du Jour
Gators are the new sharks.
I know you can outswim most gators, KJGrog. But what if two of them decided to ambush you? Aren’t you scared? For God’s sake I plead you to get stay the hell out of Lake Minneola. I don’t want to be photoshopping two arms onto your body after an attack.
I’m sacred shitless by these reports. I don’t go out of the house after dark anymore.
Whatever. I know E. Clark is just trying to get you to stop the beginning of my Disney 70.3 training plan. It isn’t gonna work.
Seeing how it is down here in FL these days, you may want to train to take down a few gators. Might come handy for the race.
Ahh when I went to Belize we fed the local gators with chickens tied to twine. The locals put on a show doing this and let me join in. Looking back, being like 10 feet from them playing this ‘game’ maybe was kinda dangerous.
Here’s the thing with the wildlife, even the species with a viscious rep.: most of the time they’re actually pretty harmless. They lull you into a sense of complacency, then one day wham! You’re halfway down their trachea before you realize it.
Note: my theory somehow doesn’t apply to Steve Erwin.
Dude, some kids were trying to get us to come to this. I was like, “Cool, let’s check it out!” My wife was like, “Let’s go out to eat…”.
If I’m halfway down their trachea, they’re in for a surprise too.
Here’s the thing with the wildlife, even the species with a viscious rep.: most of the time they’re actually pretty harmless. They lull you into a sense of complacency, then one day wham! You’re halfway down their trachea before you realize it.
Note: my theory somehow doesn’t apply to Steve Erwin.