Alligator Advice

[Butzbach]

Our home in Coral Springs, FL was about 400 yards from the Everglades. One morning in June I was picking up the cycling pace on my second pre dawn lap of our subdivision. As I rounded the clubhouse turn I heard FLAP! FLAP! FLAP! FLAP! FLAP! In my dim (at low speed) generator headlight beam I made out a tree branch across the road ahead that quickly morphed into an at least 9ft gator. I say 9ft cuz he was all the way across an 8ft lane AT AN ANGLE! The FLAP! FLAP! FLAP! was him in high gear (their upright run) making it across the asphalt toward the golf course pond. Their “shoulders” look like ball joints in that mode.

That was the end of “exercise” for that day. I passed my oldest in the kitchen at the homestead and he asked me what was wrong. “Dad, you’re white as a sheet.”

Gators have brains about the size of a walnut. Their tiny CPUs are awash in hormones during mating season. They do things and go places that they don’t any other time of the year.

[Butzbach]

Deleted duplicate

[DT Guy]

Pahoo posted: ...you got Gators that mostly, leave you, alone. ...

That's like having a gun that MOSTLY doesn't blow up when you shoot it, or a car that MOSTLY doesn't catch fire when you drive it.

Larry

[stinkeypete]

Guns DO blow up occasionally. Cars DO catch on fire occasionally. We don’t fret about it.

The chance of being injured by an alligator is smaller than the chance of being injured by mosquito borne disease. Smaller than getting sick from a tick bite, or from sunburn.

We don’t have accurate data, but there is always a chance of shooting yourself in the leg reholstering your Glock.

Me? I like guns. But I don’t feel the need to shoot animals out of season.

[.358 whelen]

SSS

[DT Guy]

Guns DO blow up occasionally. Cars DO catch on fire occasionally. We don’t fret about it.

The chance of being injured by an alligator is smaller than the chance of being injured by mosquito borne disease. Smaller than getting sick from a tick bite, or from sunburn.

We don’t have accurate data, but there is always a chance of shooting yourself in the leg reholstering your Glock.

Me? I like guns. But I don’t feel the need to shoot animals out of season.

Yes, bugs can make you sick. Not many can eat your leg down to a stump, although it's been a while since I was in FL.

I don't 'feel the need to shoot animals out of season' either, and I don't see anyone here suggesting they do; I also note the instances of posters mentioning instances where an alligator actually DID attack a person or pet. Your implication that some folks here are just busting to shoot an alligator because they're somehow morally inferior to you is noted, however.

Larry