ISLAND PACKET (S Carolina) 20 July 03 Too much attention from humans harms local reptiles (Jessica Flathmann)
State wildlife biologist Dean Harrigal knows a saying that can serve as a simple guide in the sometimes confrontational relationship between humans and alligators:
"A fed gator is a dead gator."
This warning comes in handy in the Lowcountry -- where the reptiles can be seen on golf courses, in rivers and neighborhood ponds -- and even proved prophetic in Jayme Bowman's Bluffton community.
Bowman said some of her neighbors and their children fed a 5-foot alligator that lived in the pond behind her home and the children sometimes taunted it with sticks.
Nature eventually took its course and the gator started coming up the bank. The aggressive display alarmed residents, who reported the reptile to the Department of Natural Resources. The gator was determined a nuisance and was killed earlier this month.
But Bowman said the killing didn't seem necessary.
"It never did anything that I consider aggressive," she said. "It was fine and it was scared of people ... and all of a sudden people started messing with it."
In fact, Harrigal, a biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, said the problems between alligators and humans usually start not with the alligator, but when people begin interacting with the alligator, by feeding or taunting it.
"People who think it's cute (to feed an alligator) are leading to the death of that gator," he said.
Once alligators get fed by humans, they don't make the distinction between a person feeding them and a person just watching, Harrigal said.
Besides making the alligator accustomed to humans -- and making it more dangerous to humans -- it's also illegal to feed alligators, said Walt Rhodes, state alligator project supervisor.
Feeding a gator carries a $200 fine or 30 days in jail, but Rhodes said he didn't know of anyone who has been convicted of this crime.
"I would like to see more emphasis on enforcing that law because of the ramifications," Rhodes said. "It could ultimately result in death."
That could be death for the human or the alligator.
There are an estimated 100,000 alligators in South Carolina, Rhodes said.
In 2002, 39 alligators were killed in Beaufort County because the Natural Resources Department determined they were a nuisance, Rhodes said. He said most, if not all, of those animals became a problem because they were fed by humans.
Statewide, 175 alligators were killed in 2002 because they were deemed nuisance animals, Rhodes said. The number killed this year wasn't available because the figures haven't yet been calculated.
Since the nuisance killing program started in 1988, the number of alligators killed each year has fallen from about 300 to an average of about 200 each year. Rhodes credits the decrease to fewer large alligators because most probably were killed in the early years of the program.
Only state-approved agents -- including Critter Management on Hilton Head Island -- can kill alligators. And they can do it only after the state issues a permit to kill a specific nuisance alligator, Harrigal said. Critter Management isn't paid for the service, instead the company gets to keep the alligator meat and hide.
Killing an alligator without a permit is illegal, Rhodes said, and carries a fine of $1,000 to $5,000, a year in jail and 14 points on the person's hunting license. If a hunter has 18 points against his or her license, it will be suspended for a year.
Harrigal said he gets all the calls about nuisance alligators in Beaufort County. He asks each caller a series of questions about the alligator, including its reactions to people and whether it has been fed by humans.
He determines whether the alligator is actually a nuisance and needs to be removed. The decision is made after a phone conversation, he said. All the animals removed are killed.
"We err on the side of humans because there is potential for harm," Harrigal said.
Experts say once an alligator is fed by humans it looks at all humans as food sources. But there are ways to gauge a gator's intentions.
Harrigal said an alligator that comes toward a person but stops 50 feet away in the water isn't a nuisance, nor is a large one just lounging on the bank. An alligator becomes a nuisance when it approaches people closely, especially if its mouth is open -- as if it expects food, Harrigal said.
"We do not come and catch alligators just because they are there," Harrigal said. "Alligators are part of the Lowcountry, like mosquitoes, ticks, gnats and snakes."
Too much attention from humans harms local reptiles