PRESS-JOURNAL (Vero Beach, Florida) 22 May 06 State's nuisance gator hotline burning up (Michelle Sheldone and Ed Killer)
To combat Florida alligators causing "Jaws"-like public fears, some say it's awareness, not vigilante action, that's needed.
"It's a great tragedy that there has been loss of human life, but we shouldn't go overboard," Busch Wildlife Sanctuary Director David Hitzig of Jupiter said Friday.
Alligator activity that led to three Florida deaths in recent weeks has operators in the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's statewide Nuisance Alligator Hotline working overtime.
"Everyone is real sensitive right now about gators," Call center supervisor Linda Collins said.
"People who are not from Florida are not attuned to the natural habitat," Tania DePrima of Jupiter Farms said. "They come from up north, they see a gator, they think it's charming to throw bread down. You see kids in these little boats. They're having fun, they fall over in the water. It's not correct."
Feeding, molesting and killing the protected species is against the law.
A Sarasota-area woman found that out this week, after she shot a gator that had exited her lanai, and she was cited with a hunting violation.
"I never had one come into the house, but I keep my doors closed, too," Tequesta resident Dottie Campbell said.
Campbell brought the Loxahatchee River gator population to the attention of the Tequesta Village Council Thursday night.
"My children used to say I was mean, because I wouldn't let them waterski during the mating season,"she told Tequesta councilors.
Alligators typically prefer fresh water canals, ponds, lakes and rivers, but Campbell and friends over the past 1 1/2 years have seen three in salt waters off the backyard dock of her Loxahatchee Riverfront home, she said.
"We're in their territory. They're not in ours," she said. "They've been here forever."
Conservation Commission biologist Blair Hayman, assistant coordinator of the Nuisance Alligator Program, cited 2,034 phone calls since the first of May compared to 1,703 calls during the same time last year.
This month, Conservation Commission trappers have killed alligators at a rate of 104 per day.
In North County this week, Hitzig saw a 3-foot gator wading a freshwater pond on a rural Jupiter Farms property. The reptile had been there for six months, he said the property owner casually told him.
Of more than one million gators in Florida, thousands reside in Palm Beach County, Hitzig said.
"Some people may gain satisfaction by seeing alligators go away, but all that does is open the door for another one to move in," he said.
The alligator was on the brink of extinction in the 1960s and has since rebounded and stabilized, according to Hitzig.
In the 60 years the state has recorded alligator attacks, 25 attacks have been fatal, he said.
"You have to look at the big picture," Hitzig said. "Your chances of getting killed by an alligator are far less than by an auto accident, drowning or getting struck by lightning."
State's nuisance gator hotline burning up