MOBILE REGISTER (Alabama) 30 June 05 Feeding alligator leads to his death - State officials blame beachgoers after the decision to shoot the aggressive reptile (Ryan Dezember)
Authorities killed an 11-foot, 7-inch alligator at the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge after state wildlife officers watched it being fed and taunted by beachgoers and observed it acting aggressively toward humans, state officials said.
A popular site on the drive down Mobile Street to the refuge's public beach, the large male, along with a smaller counterpart, long inhabited the marshes that hug the road. Passersby would often slow and crane their necks to glimpse the oft-submerged alligators, some being bold enough to get out for a better look or camera angle.
But beachgoers have grown more brazen this summer, crowding around the reptiles, scooting dangerously close to pose for photos and tossing cookies, sandwiches, beer bottles -- anything to coax a reaction, said Thad Holmes, an Alabama conservation enforcement officer.
In turn, the larger gator became audacious, waiting roadside and sometimes crawling onto the pavement when people were present, expecting a snack.
Holmes said that he went to the Mobile Street marshes Sunday to investigate after "a week's worth of complaints from local residents about people feeding alligators.
"I went down and set up on it and watched and sure enough someone came up and fed the alligator," he said.
Holmes said some were cited for feeding the gator, though details were withheld because the cases were still under investigation, he said. Under state law, feeding an alligator can bring a maximum sentence of a $500 fine and three months in jail.
When alligators are fed it diminishes their natural reluctance toward humans and also leads them to associate people with food, Holmes said. And since food tossed to them is often not a part of an alligator diet, it can have ill effects on their health, he said.
Several factors led to the decision to kill the gator, Holmes said.
Strike one was seeing it fed, he said. Strike two was when the reptile made an uncharacteristic lunge at him. The final decision to have the gator destroyed, Holmes said, was made after he saw people squeezing close for photos, oblivious to the danger they were putting themselves in.
So Holmes called Gary Casper, the state's alligator nuisance control agent, to kill the reptile, which he did, by shooting it on Sunday.
"We hate it that we have to do that," Casper said. "If you're the fellow with the sandwich or the marshmallow, you're the one pulling the trigger and that's the message we're trying to get across."
Casper, who has a state contract that allows him to sell the meat and skin from the alligators he kills, said he also claimed a gator in Gulf Shores this week that was run over by a car and had to be shot by a police officer. Such is routine in south Alabama, Casper said, "but to go down and have to destroy an alligator just because you're feeding him is ridiculous."
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officials, which run the Fort Morgan preserve, were not involved in the shooting, said Robert Cail, manager of the refuge. Cail said he was still gathering information about the shooting Wednesday but did say that the animal was killed because it had been fed such things as Oreo cookies and chicken.
Casper and Holmes both said that state conservation officers were conducting stakeouts of other alligator habitats in Mobile and Baldwin counties, looking for people who feed the reptiles.
Feeding alligator leads to his death