NEWS-PRESS (Fort Myers, Florida) 13 December 06 It's time to turn tables on alligators (Byron Stout)
Florida's game commissioners are considering making it easier to get rid of a gator, based on a statewide opinion survey. A lot of Floridians now think we've got more gators than we'll ever need, and that the business of gator protection has gotten completely out of whack.
Since the 1960s, anyone caught whacking a gator has been subject to severe penalties, based on protections given imperiled species.
Last spring, when three Floridians were attacked and killed by alligators within a span of weeks, it became shockingly apparent that it wasn't really alligators in peril. Those attacks were a statistical anomaly, but they put a point on the danger of living with alligators.
Since 1948, when state statistics begin, 281 people in Florida have suffered unprovoked attacks (not counting some still under investigation). Four fatal attacks have occurred in Lee and Charlotte within the past five years.
Two of the latter fatalities occurred on Sanibel, where the policy for years was of benign tolerance toward gators. Sanibel may be the state's most environmentally sensitive locality, but its gator policy proved to be naive.
The game commission line on gators as predators has been twofold. One — they are indeed carnivores that select prey based on relative size, the most common relationship being a propensity for eating dogs. And two — they will try to eat people if they are A. small, or B. associated with food, which is why it is illegal to feed alligators.
All of which is true, but which fails to deal with a couple of other gator traits. One — given no reason to fear humans, alligators don't. And two — given time, alligators inevitably become large enough to consider any human as groceries.
In the 12 years before 1960, only four people in Florida were attacked by alligators and none were killed. In those days, alligators were hunted, and it was humans who were dangerous.
But now the commission is faced with a conundrum of its own making: How to protect Floridians from alligators that number more than a million, many of which are of a potentially dangerous size and distribution that puts them in perilous proximity to a burgeoning human population.
The state's nuisance alligator control program has been effective to a point. If a gator is making you nervous, you can call 1-866-FWC-GATOR, and a licensed professional will try to catch and kill it.
Unfortunately, making a living by selling (nuisance) alligator products has become difficult due to depressed hide prices. So recruiting motivated gator trappers has become difficult.
Nowadays, the pros clearly are short-handed, and the rest of us have our hands tied. It's time again to put all gators on notice that humans are dangerous, and getting too close could portend a future as a handbag.
The commission's only question is how to best manage a state full of goodole boys ready and willing to put gators back in their place.
It's time to turn tables on alligators