Gator trappers busy with unwanted visitors
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
New York Times News Service
Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 9:50 p.m.
Joanne and Clift McMahon heard what sounded like a thump-thump at the back door of their bed and breakfast in Port Charlotte. "We looked out, and it was an alligator," said Joanne McMahon, 69, who owns Tropical Paradise Bed and Breakfast, which is surrounded by water.
In this May 1 photo provided by the Alachua County Sheriff's office, a 10-foot-long alligator takes a bite out of a Florida deputy sheriff's cruiser in Gainesville while the deputy was waiting for an alligator trapper to show up. Sheriff's spokesman Todd Kelly said the car's front bumper was heavily damaged. (AP Photo/Alachua County Sheriff's Office)
"'My gosh,' I said. 'What does he want? A room for the night?'" Clift McMahon opened the door and used his cane to prod the 5 1/2-foot foot gator (from behind, thankfully). The alligator lumbered over to the koi pond, on his own terms, and, treating it like a spa, floated peacefully, snacked on fish and wrestled with the plumbing and the water lilies. The McMahons hoped that the alligator would move on.
Finally, after a full day with their guest last week, they called a trapper who dropped a noose around its neck, dragged it out, wrapped it up and taped its mouth shut.
And that is just at the McMahons' place.
It is prowling season for alligators, who have been lulled out of their winter torpor by warm weather and lust — it's mating season. Besides love, they are looking for food and watering holes. This being Florida, built on swampland carved with canals flowing every which way, alligators, now numbering more than 1 million, have a way of turning up in some pretty unlikely places.
They luxuriate in swimming pools. They wander down suburban streets. They move into neighborhood lakes. They stand on roadways and refuse to move. They sunbathe on lanais.
And, on occasion, they just want a little privacy.
One unfortunate woman, Alexis Dunbar, went to use her bathroom last month in her Palmetto house and found a 7-foot alligator. It had already scampered around her house hunting for her cats while she was away. The alligator had slipped in through her unsecured doggy door. Her boyfriend barricaded it in the bathroom until a trapper arrived, while Dunbar found her cats, terrified but safe.
These episodes happen so often during the spring and summer months that Florida has a dedicated hot line to report "nuisance" alligators. The Fish and Wildlife Commission line handles about 100 to 150 calls a day from around the state.
"What seems unusual is merely routine when you live in a state where the alligator population is 1.3 million," said Linda Collins, the call center supervisor at the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program, or SNAP.
The operators call a gator trapper; there are about 68 in Florida, not including assistants, who work under contract. Trappers throw a noose around a gator's neck and use ropes to secure the reptile, if necessary. Then they tape up the mouth, haul it to the back of a pickup and place it in a secure metal box.
If an alligator measures less than 4 feet, clemency is bestowed and it gets relocated. Anything larger becomes the property of the trapper, who is free to kill the reptile and sell the hide and the meat. Most gators just want to chill and cannot be bothered to bite humans. Last year, there were only five reported bites; in 2009, the number was 19.
But cats and dogs are another matter. Early one recent morning, Robert Geraci Sr., 70, who lives in Palmetto Bay, was perusing the NBA playoff scores on his computer when he heard some splashing in the canal that abuts his home. He peered out and saw an 8-footer with something in its mouth. He thought it was a turtle; it was a cat.
He and his neighbors have seen a few alligators, so they routinely take safety precautions, especially with pets and visiting grandchildren. Still, as Floridians, they take their animals in stride.
"Hey, go back up North, if you don't like alligators," Geraci said.
Victor Borrero, 30, a sheriff's deputy in Alachua County, is staying put. But he has developed a healthy respect for alligators. Two weeks ago, an aspirational alligator tried to swallow his patrol car at the Gainesville Country Club. Borrero had received a gator call, pulled up to the club and saw it. The other deputies got out and started prodding it to get back in the water.
The officers decided to try to block the gator's progress with the car, a turn of events the gator found irritating.
"And suddenly, I hear, 'Crunch,'" Borrero said. "Their mouths dropped. And I'm like: What happened? Did he just bite my bumper? Oh God. I want to get out and look at it. I'm pulling my iPhone out."
The gator started to turn, he said, and then, "the whole bumper starts to come off."
The deputy got back in his car and backed up slowly, the gator's jaws still locked on the bumper. Finally, after several dragging attempts, the gator, presumably still hungry, surrendered.
"Those things are crazy," he said.
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