12 year old killed by gator, humans respond

The BBQ Pit
81

Florida native checking in. I grew up around alligators every day.

I’m more sympathetic to the alligators, predictibly, than many folks who don’t live around here. Every single thing the children did was wrong. Bad parenting, bad behavior, bad result. Seen it between two dozen and a hundred times. I can’t remember.

OTOH, killing the big gators in the area probably makes sense. It’s do it officially, or have others do it unofficially. All it takes is a weapon and a willingness to break a couple laws. Self defense doctrine still applies. Ergo, it might even be legal to shoot them yourself in the wake of such a tragedy.

On Dinsdale’s question about alligators acquiring a taste for human flesh, paraphrasing. Alligators are territorial and have a shrewd little predator brain, albeit a reptilian one. Once a particular animal becomes a source of food in its mind, it will continue to hunt it. Children–but especially dogs–are particularly vulnerable.

I’ve seen ‘tame’ alligators take food practically out of the insane homeowners hand before. (It’s illegal to feed them) What happens is an alligator associates a particular place and time with feeding. If the feeding goes smoothly–no struggling necessary–the alligator might appear tame. Woe on the next person who shows up at that spot at that time without a half dozen dead chickens or whatever.

Anyone hear the stories alleging that the children taunted and fed the alligator? I’ve had such bad luck citing news stories recently, reliability-wise, I’ll just say that a rumor suggests the kids were behaving very stupidly.

82

Under FL law this can’t happen to alligators. You have to have to be licensed to trap or hunt gators and there are very specific rules and limitations. I would agree that mass slaughter of alligators would be bad.

83

Ahem. Isn’t is possible to observe this boys death without sentimentality? Yes, he died after doing something foolish, an unfortunate occurance, now he’s dead. Comfort the parents, etc etc. But this was just one kid, and it’s time to move on.

And following that, observe the circumstances that lead to the child’s death, and see if there is anything we can do to minimize the likelihood of a similar occurance in the future. Hmmm. The pond is infested with alligators. Do the alligators pose a danger to other people? Hmmm, yes. Are alligators endangered? No, the alligator population has rebounded nicely, alligators are everywhere in Florida. Are there aesthetic concerns? Not really, the majestic alligator still roams nearby swamps, there is no reason to preserve this particular population of alligators, and alligators aren’t like elephants or dolphins or chimapanzees where we can see an echo of ourselves in them.

And so, we decide that this particular population of alligators is too close to humans, and we either kill them (and eat them), or relocate them. Well, since alligators are common and particular alligators aren’t sentient enough for us to be concerned about the welfare of one individual alligator, then killing the alligators is acceptable. We don’t have to kill them out of anger, or revenge, just dispassionately judge them a danger that outweighs their other value, and we have alligator meat for the local soup kitchens.

I guess this is something that you city people have a hard time with. Either animals are vermin to be exterminated without thought, or they are sacred symbols of the wilderness that must be protected at all cost. Heh. City fellers.

I ENJOY wilderness, I LIKE the idea of alligators roaming Florida’s swamps, I think it’s great that there are lakes in Florida that you can’t swim in because they are infested with alligators. I also think that killing a couple gators every so often is no big deal. Gators eat the humans, humans eat the gators–it’s a circle of life thing.

“Kid got et by a gator yesterday.”
“Ayup.”
“Lotta gators in that there swamp.”
“Ayup.”
“How about we go kill a couple afore they get too frisky.”
“Ayup.”
“Gator meat for the stewpot. Them’s good eatin.”
“Ayup.”

See?

84

OK. A kid goes swimming where there are gators. A big gator kills the kid. In response (not “revenge”), the big gator and several others are killed. Many of you are VERY, VERY ANGRY about the gator killings in some way that I don’t understand. Could someone please tell me what should have been done instead?

Please don’t say “The kid shouldn’t have been there in the first place”; that is totally obvious, since the kid was killed. What different action should have been taken after the kid was killed, i.e., when rational adults found out about it and had to respond?

For my part, I think exactly the right response was taken. Gators are not our friends; as has been pointed out, the best thing that can happen when gators and people get together is that the people are left alone. Killing these gators was the moral equivalent of killing a hornet’s nest that’s on the side of one’s house. You don’t see the nest and say, “Goodness, hope nobody gets stung,” and then ignore it. Stinging people is what hornets do.

I grew up in Florida, and when I was very young lived out essentially in the swamp; even when we moved into town we’d occasionally see gators in the backyard. Gators are good at three things: killing, making baby gators, and scaring the shit out of me.

On preview, well said, Lemur866.

85

It’s a distant echo, but I can see it.

Maybe we’ll just save that alligator meat for later. Hey, they do that!

86

Because, um, I can see an echo. :smack:

87

What does a duck quack echo look like Beagle the echo seer? :slight_smile:

88

Dude, there’s no such thing as an evolutionary "ladder. Evolution is not a linear hierachy. we are the latest species in our evolutionary line but so is every other extant species. . We are at the top of our food chain, but so are alligators. In fact, if an alligator eats a stupid kid, that’s natural selection at its finest.

As to the OP:
Killing animals en masse in hopes of exacting some sort of revenge is childish and pointless. It’s still a tragedy for the kid and his parents, but blaming the animals is stupid. It’s like if the kid ran out into a thunderstorm and got struck by lightning. It’s an act of nature. It’s sad but killing animals is not going to fix anything.

89

Why did anything have to be “done?” The kid was already dead. There was nobody else in the water. There was no reason they had to do anything.

90

What I see are people trying to have it both ways: man, being (scoff) “at the top of the evolutionary ladder”, is justified in destroying everything that threatens him. Yet, no other animal, apparently, is granted the same right. Instead, once they stop fearing us, they have to be destroyed.

So, it would seem, only humans are allowed to actually use their “nature”. Any other animal tries to do what its instincts tell it, and it’s slaughtersville.

Which I understand from a “it’s them or us” perspective, but in most cases it isn’t “them or us”. When humans are spreading into every habitat imaginable, it should not come as a surprise that some of the existing creatures might object to having their territory invaded. Adopting a “live and let live” policy would be better for all concerned, except, as evidenced by some responses in this thread, many humans don’t really care to let anything else live. The whole “sanctity of life” argument really boils down to “only human life is sacred”.

I, for one, don’t buy into any “speciesist” arguments, either. I’ve been on the receiving end of a great deal of cruelty thanks to my own species, and have never, in fact, been subject to cruelty from any non-humans where I didn’t invite such (i.e., I got what I deserved if I got bitten by some other critter who would probably have just as well been left alone). So I lend no sympathy to anyone simply because they’re human, nor do I deny sympathy to other animals simply because they are deemed by most to be “lesser” animals. In this case, we have alligators doing what they do naturally vs. a human kid behaving irresponsibly. Call me callous if you must, but in this case, my sympathies lie with the alligators. This was a preventable situation in which eight living things wind up dead for no good reason.

91

It’s surprisingly similar to a fart. :smiley:

Rules to live by in Florida:

  1. Don’t swim in lakes or rivers.

  2. See rule 1.

  3. Don’t feed alligators.

  4. Don’t antagonize alligators, especially in the Spring.

Spring is when they move around, getting more aggressive and territorial.

I’ll admit that I’ve water skiied in lakes that contained large alligators. Sometimes I’ve even fallen down fairly nearby large gators. I’ve seen them leave the bank Tarzan-style and come after me. So, I’ve been stupid also. It’s always a calculated risk.

92

Just my $0.02 from my various biology classes…

As far as I know about alligators (biology class), they don’t naturally attack humans. (quoted here as well) It’s very rare and only 12 people have been killed since, 1985 I think according to the article.

Once a predator learns that it CAN attack a certain animal, it WILL if given the opportunity. Kids swim in lakes in FL, gators swim in lakes in FL, i.e. the opportunity exists. - Zooology

Gators = predators. After the boy was attacked, that gator was swimming around knowing perfectly well it was ok to attack the next kid that swam too close.

Naturally, the authorities went out to kill the animal before it got the chance again. But the gator didn’t EAT the kid, so there wouldn’t neccessarily be any way to tell which gator actually did the eating.

The article said they killed 7 gators that were between 8 and 10 feet, the same length as the one that got the kid, and sent them all off to be examined. They were playing it safe. Better to lose 7 gators than take the chance that another kid might be killed.

Yes, the kid was foolish, no, it shouldn’t happened, no we don’t know ANYTHING about the parenting style, and YES the authorities were perfectly reasonable in thier responce.

I can’t think of how to phrase an argument against that.

93

Would Are Eco Sytem be Ok If We Extincted Mosquitos?

Holy shit, Wildest Bill became literate and returned as Ben Hicks.

94

Well, perhaps you should re-read the post, because several good arguments have been presented.

95

Oh, and one more thing that I didn’t point out. It obviously wasn’t a “revenge” killing or any of this anti-alligator we’re-higher-on-the-chain-so-screw-them anti-speciest stuff.

They only took alligators between 8 and 10 feet long and they only took them within a mile of the area.

They were being safe. I say Kudos.

96

A mixed metaphor is like a mule with a spinning wheel…nobody’s sure how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it.

97

Monorail. . . er. . alligator!

98

Perhaps you didn’t mean to, but you are anthropomorphizing the animals with this statement. Ascribing human motives or emotions or characteristics to animals (or anything else) is a common error and stems from a lack of understanding of the nature of animals.

It appears to me that the existing creatures in this case were not “objecting” to anything. Quite the opposite, they were merely doing what they are designed to do: Taking prey. Taking easy, small-energy-expense prey. Which they will certainly do again, again and again if they can. Is this wrong of them? Of course not. Neither is it wrong for us to do what we do, which is eliminate a perceived threat to ourselves.
Humans in this neck of the woods, by and large, do have a policy of live and let live. It’s absurd to point to this case as proof of some kind of hysterical mass slaughter.

The very “live and let live” attitude that some people are proclaiming that they espouse in this thread would be equally well served by applying to humans, don’t you think? Especially pre-adolescent humans who, as we all know, ain’t always the sharpest pencils in the box.

99

Like most predators, alligators appear very conscious of their own size and the size of their prey. Very large gators tend to, rightly, think that they are peak predators with little to fear. But, unlike crocs., alligators won’t come out of the water to eat you–unless–the particular gator has been fed by humans. Dogs are snacks to alligators. Dogs tend to go the water’s edge and bark. snap, drag, drown This often brings alligators in contact with humans.

I’ve heard of so many gator bites/attacks I’ve lost count. But, you’re right, mostly people don’t die.

I’ve never really feared gators because I respect them. Putting yourself in harm’s way is ordinarily too scary for me, especially in a state littered with swimming pools and surrounded by ocean.

100

The Florida law cited earlier states that aggressive animals are to be killed. Not “Let’s kill a whole bunch of them on the chance that one is the aggressive one”. I don’t hear of a mass roundup and slaughter of Rottweilers if one should happen to attack a child.

No one has cited any reliable sources regarding the propensity of an alligator to “acquire a taste for blood”.

The mass shark slaughters is a good analogy. The same urge to kill the offending beast occurs with mountain lions in the wild and other critters that don’t live anywhere near residential areas. It often has little to do with any logical threat. If a human was attacked by an animal, the animal gets viewed as if it was Ted Bundy, not a wild creature following a normal instinct.

I’ll add the following probable justification to these sorts of killings: the illogical but compelling urge to wipe out large numbers of potentially threatening animals “so that we don’t have to live in fear”*, and the idea that the killings will make the bereaved relatives “feel better”.
*Act responsibly and realize that you are undertaking a risk by moving into a wild habitat area, and that fear should lessen dramatically.