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Photo Diary: Some Dumbass Tourists Teasing a Florida Alligator [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-03
Well, a couple days ago I was taking an afternoon walk in the Largo Nature Preserve. Part of the preserve has a raised boardwalk that runs all the way around the pond. It’s gator breeding season, so Papa Gator, all nine or so feet of him, was out patrolling his pond looking for love.
Alas, when I came upon the scene, there was a group of tourists (I don’t know where they were from but they all had heavy Southern accents and probably should have known better) who were teasing Papa Gator with a stick, swishing it around in the water to try to attract him and then splashing water at him.
I gently reminded them that they were not in Disney World, the Alligators here are real and wild and have actual teeth, and Alligators can jump up to about half their body length, so that 9-footer out there would have no trouble reaching some part of their anatomy and dragging them from the boardwalk into the water---where he can hold his breath for half an hour and you cannot.
They laughed me off and continued teasing the Gator. So I stepped back and readied my camera in case Papa decided to tear a leg off and drip a little chlorine into the human gene pool—I’d at least be able to show the Fish and Wildlife folks that the Gator had been provoked so they wouldn’t shoot him.
Fortunately for the dumbasses, Papa Gator just got tired of them and quietly submerged, not to be seen again.
Sadly, it is not the first time I have seen people who were being dumbasses with a very dangerous animal, and I suspect it will not be the last.
As a very good friend of mine used to say, “Most people have shit for brains”.
(sigh)
Papa Gator out cruising
Splashing water at the Gator
[END]
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