As more Florida residents and tourists take to the water this summer, the likelihood of encountering aggressive alligators is increasing, as reported in several local news stories over the past two weeks.
On June 21, a 19-year-old snorkeler was attacked by an 8-foot gator around noon in the Rainbow River near Dunnellon, Florida. The gator grabbed the man’s head and neck, causing deep lacerations, severe bleeding and serious injuries, according to a Marion County Fire Rescue report.
The young man was taken to a local hospital that day, where he was treated and released the next day.
Florida alligator trappers captured and removed the massive 8-foot, 3-inch gator from the Rainbow River, with swimmers and snorkelers returning soon after.
Brittany Clark, 31, of Sacramento, California, was killed by a large alligator on June 28, near Orlando. Clark was swimming in the Iconlockahatchee River while hiking with some friends in the Little Big Econ State Forest outside Orlando.
When Clark was in 3 feet of water, a huge crocodile bit him on both arms. His friends called the authorities and tried to save him. But after suffering severe shock and blood loss from the attack, he died on the way to a local hospital. Recently released body-cam footage shows first responders rushing to the scene of the attack.
Bodycam shows first responders rushing to fatal alligator attack in Florida
After Clark’s attack, state wildlife officials captured and killed a 12-foot and 13-foot alligator from the area. Testing is ongoing to determine if one of those gators was the same one that attacked Clark.
Then on the evening of July 3, 71-year-old James McMicken was fishing in a canal behind his home in North Fort Myers. Just then a big crocodile pounced upon him from the water, caught hold of his right leg and dragged him into the canal.
“He rolled me down the bank into the water. I put my thumb in his eye. And I just took that fishing pole and jabbed it in his other eye and poked it, and poked it. It seemed like forever, but it wasn’t that long. But then he broke loose,” McMicken told a local television station.
McMicken was helped to his feet by his dog, whom he had called to him. “I had never had it crawl that far, so I called my dog, and she stood there and let me ride her on her back to where I could stand,” he told the station.
He struggled back to his home where his wife cared for his seriously injured right leg. He soon passed out in a chair, and was taken to a hospital in Cape Coral where he is recovering.
While gator attacks on humans are relatively rare, they do occur every year in Florida where more than a million of the reptiles are found – in each of the state’s 67 counties.
There were two fatal attacks in the Sunshine State last year, with a total of 13 attacks recorded. State wildlife officials began recording human-gator attacks in 1948, about 500 documented since that time.
“Gator-human encounters are most common right now in the summer,” said Chadwick Larsey, a licensed Florida alligator catcher. outdoor Life. “School’s out, it’s summer vacation, people are swimming in the water and gators are abundant.
“Crocodiles are just finishing their breeding season, and female alligators are guarding young around their nests – and they can be aggressive.”
Larsey has caught hundreds of alligators during his six years as a licensed state gator trapper. He has handled and removed nuisance gators that were over 12 feet long and weighed over 600 pounds.
“Alligators are in their natural environment, and when we intrude into it, there are problems,” says Larsey, 37, of Jacksonville, Florida. “We have to be careful at all times around water. We don’t want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Larsey has often captured large nuisance crocodiles from golf course waterways, canals, and residential lakes and ponds where human conflicts are common. He and his wife Lindsey have removed large gators from homeowners’ ponds.
“We caught a big fish in a residential pond and there was a kid’s party going on next door,” he said. “We held the gator and the kids looked at it. They all ran over wanting to touch it and take pictures with it.”
He believes the recent Florida drought may have something to do with the many recent gator attacks.
“Larger predators that typically move around in the spring looking for mates will be staying in places where there’s still a lot of water,” he says. “It concentrates the gators, and when swimmers come to cool off, they’re intruding on reptile grounds. That can cause trouble.”
