Diving with Alligators

[ReefGuy]

I lead a 10 member underwater recovery team in SW Florida. My team dives around alligators quite frequently. It's not unusual for several to be around when we start our dives. If they've been fed, they can be aggressive, but normally they are just curious. One of my guys even grabbed one underwater during a search. When he first touched it, he thought it was the car we were looking for, but when he grabbed it, it moved off. Didn't bother us the rest of the call.

On another occasion, we were searching a shallow pond, and a medium sized (6') gator was sunning on the bank. My diver was having a difficult time staying down (depth was about 4-5'), and his fins kept slapping the top of the water. the gator got interested and went towards the diver, but broke off and eventually moved off.

Then there was the homeless guy that was camping by a canal. When we got there, two medium sized gators were still on him, and a huge one (every bit of 14') hovering around. We got them off and turned them over to fish and wildlife, and spent two days finding the rest of the guy. The big gator stayed around the whole time, but fish and wildlife were unable to get him. He left us alone, though.

Then there was the time I was searching under a bridge for a missing child. I was the first one in the water (which was chest deep), and was putting on my gloves (thankfully), while moving away from the boat. Something bumped my thigh hard enough to about knock me over (and leave a nice bruise). Given the setting (late summer, sunset, brackish water), I figure it was either a gator (most unlikely), tarpon, or bull shark. I keep telling myself it was a tarpon. It was a tarpon. I'm just glad I was wearing a drysuit.

To sum it up, in my experience small or mid sized gators aren't a problem unless they've been fed. Once they get above 8', they make me nervous, but we've never had a serious problem.

---------- Post added May 13th, 2014 at 09:10 AM ----------

According to the Wildlife Biologist told me that an alligator is afraid of anything that is taller than it. That is unless you did something to piss it off. Therefore a diver on the surface is lunch.

I'd take that with a huge grain of salt.

---------- Post added May 13th, 2014 at 09:12 AM ----------

When is mating season?

End of April through the first part of June.

 

[Lee Taylor]

i am a long time river diver living in Charleston SC. We have lots of gators in the rivers. They congregate in the areas where they are most likely to find food. In some areas there are very few gators. In some areas there are LOTS. They hunt at sunset but are also opportunists. They are ambush predators. They dont like to be seen. They generally stay near their nest. They favor the edges of the river. They seldom are found in the center/bottom of a river. They like river edges where they can crawl out easily (low grade, not steep) and quickly disappear into the tall grass. They seem to prefer mud over hard pan. The hate boaters. They DO NOT like to be approached and will usually run away and hide. They protect their territories which seems to be a large circular area around their nest. They will investigate if you enter their territory and they see you on the surface. Here is a video of me searching and finding a gator.

[video=youtube;v2RCMgdaPmk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2RCMgdaPmk[/video]