Alligator Attack - Defense Fundamentals

[ShallowDiverDave]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/29/gator.attack.reut/index.html

I just saw this on cnn.

 

[DandyDon]

Alligators pluck toddlers off yards in the swamps in Florida, I hear.
My grandmother lived in Punta Gorda and there were dead alligators on the road.

I heard that Bill Gates was gonna send money to everyone who forwarded a certain email... :lol2:

From one older source...

Alligator deaths
By Times staff writer, St. Petersburg Times, published June 26, 2001

Eleven people have been killed in alligator attacks since the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission began keeping records in 1948:

11 in 53 years, family pets kill more than that.

From a 2006 news story....

...18th confirmed fatal alligator attack in Florida since 1948. Nine other previous deaths are unconfirmed, mainly because it was not clear whether the person was already dead when the alligator attacked.

There were 3 in one week last spring in Florida, but over all - 18 to 27 in 58 years is still rare.

 

[Thalassamania]

Consider that a 30 foot croc, up and running is as tall as a horse!

 

[The Chairman]

You've got enough jokes in there that now I'm unsure, REALLY?

Jokes aside... gators really, really, really hate compressed air. I was a safety diver on an excavation in the Wekiwa river a few years ago. I chased out any and all gators by purging my regulator at them. Almost all were six footers or less (less than ten years old). One surprised me when it surfaced on my morning swim down the bank just in front of me and I let him have it. The reaction was immediate and downstream he went like I shocked him. The spotter on the bank said 12 foot... I don't know how big it was. I was way too close and my mask was on and I thought more like 8 ft. It was a big head! The next mornings had me do the initial sweep from a canoe.

Gators are unpredictable. A friend of mine was bitten on his lip by an foot+ long gator he was harassing when I was much, much younger. Bwahahahahaha! Stitches and everything and we all laughed at his pain. You know those tiny gators can squawk with their mouth closed? They can squawk LOUDLY. We got out of there in case mom was close by!

A snorkeler was bitten on the head by a four footer near here in Rock Springs this past summer. It was a BIG kid, and there is reason to believe that he surprised the gator.

Gators are cool. I love to see them up close... as long as they are small or I am in a boat.

 

[DandyDon]

Gators are cool. I love to see them up close... as long as they are small or I am in a boat.

A large boat...! :11:

 

[Cacia]

oh my gosh...


a naked man smoking crack was attacked!

today

we are prophetic

 

[Thalassamania]

I had a large croc try and take a bite out of me when we were filming in the Gulf of Siam. I used the camera housing to protect myself, lost the wrestling match for the housing (we recovered it later) and managed to make it onto the swim platform and flop over the transom while the boat crew tangled it up with big dip net over it's head. Not an experience I want to repeat ... ever.

 

[The Chairman]

A canoe is fine. I have been above a bull gator making the water dance on the Suwanee River in a canoe. You could feel the vibration right through the fiberglass. I have had a gator surface by my canoe on the Withlacoochee (south) that I was in that was near as long as that 18 foot canoe. That was a bit more nerve wracking as the sternman gently steered us away. I have fished (waded) near bull gators on the Banana River estuary as a kid.

Gators are opportunistic, but they know they are not invincible and will put on a show for what it thinks is a larger predator. Don't put yourself in a position where they can ambush or where you accidentally surprise them and you will do fine. If you are in Florida and are in the water, you are surrounded by gators. You may not see them, but they can certainly see you.

 

[ShallowDiverDave]

oh my gosh...


a naked man smoking crack was attacked!

today

we are prophetic

I was beginning to think no one had seen the link...I mean, who could resist making a comment after reading about a naked man smoking crack attacked by a croc? Not you at the least.

 

[The Chairman]

So is that a croc o' crack

Or maybe a crackadillian?

A token naked guy?

OK, I'll stop.