All right, Triss. I’m glad you are taking it upon yourself to educate DF about such things. But try not to use all them big fancy words, and take it easy on the poor boy.
<If it were permissable, I’d be pulling up my easy chair right about now…>
It is bad for me (very, very bad). It does not make a wild animal bad (just dangerous). Above all it does not deserve to suffer revenge for attacking you.
I’m sick of this strawman and I’m done wasting my time with you.
I’m sad the alligators are dead.
I’m sad for the boy’s family over the loss of their son.
I’m sad the stupid boy is dead.
But let’s be honest here – the boy was stupid. He might not have been an adult, but he did have enough understanding of the world to realize that swimming in an area with large alligators is very dangerous. He deliberately and willfully went swimming, even after his friends tried to stop him, and paid the price for his stupidity.
The alligators are not to blame here; the boy is. And while I’m sad he’s dead, I’m also pissed off that he did this stupid stunt and got himself killed in the process.
And because he got himself killed, 10 other alligators (I heard it on the radio this afternoon) got killed too.
Really? This happened in a populated, heavily traveled area; suppose it had happened in your backyard. Would you say, “Well, I guess we better be careful” and go about your business? I sure as hell wouldn’t; I’d go get that gator. (OK, I’d have a professional go get the gator.) Not in “revenge,” not to “teach the gator a lesson,” but because obviously that gator is more than willing to kill a human, and this is human turf. The big problem here isn’t that these gators were killed; it’s that they weren’t killed before this happened.
From the article linked in the OP (Remember the OP? This is a thread about the OP…):
The gator, and all big gators that were crowding the human areas, should have been taken out before.
I’m not espousing the “master race” nonsense. Someone who goes swimming with gators is as dumb as the guy who climbed into Shamu’s tank at Sea World a while back and got killed. But the terrible death and this long-ass thread could have been avoided if the gators had been either removed (not likely; gators are difficult to capture live and neither rare enough nor cute enough to merit a PETA showdown) or killed when they started encroaching on human areas.
I’m not blaming anyone but the kid here, but it’s one of society’s functions to do what we can to keep our children’s stupidity–because kids are stupid–from killing them. We try, but sometimes it’s not enough. And when something like this happens, we try harder, and one of the things we do is try to keep it from happening again, by killing the dangerous animals and by teaching our kids as sternly as possible not to fuck around with gators (I’m pretty sure my own gatorphobia stems from my parents warning me emphatically about gators every single time I left the house). It’s locking the barn door after the horse is gone, but at least we can save the other horses.
Humans, especially fishermen (“dock and restaurant” + child: three strikes), generate garbage that attracts gators. It’s as bad as feeding them intentionally. It’s ship the huge ornery gator to the deep Everglades (cost prohibitive) or kill it and make wallets.
Yeah, but so what? 10 Alligators were harvested. No big whoop. If they went on an alligator-exterminating frenzy that would be bad. But the state of Florida apparently kills thousands of problem alligators every year. So this year they kill 1010 instead of 1000.
If killing the gators was going to harm the species or harm the ecology then I’d be against it. But this is just thinning the herd. Next year new gators are going to grow up and move into the pond. And new 12 year old boys will go swimming there. And the beautiful cycle will continue. Exactly what are we supposed to be outraged about?
Well, the first thing they could have done was give the gator a medal for being so brave and honest for telling the truth about eating the kid, which we didn’t expect, or they could have bawled the alligator out and told him never to be seen eating children again, which we kind of expected, but the THIRD THING was that that they rounded him up and killed him.
Where was I anthropomorphizing? Animals are territorial, are they not? If one invades their territory, they will typically become aggressive. I don’t believe I’ve said otherwise (and if you are trying to argue against my use of the word “object”, well, that’s just silly).
I was making a general statement. Humans move in without regard to what may already be living there, then act surprised when the current inhabitants defend their territory, or view humans as a potential new food source. This, and other, gator attacks would not even be an issue if the humans involved used their evolutionarily-derived reasoning ability to avoid it in the first place. Co-habitation does not require killing everything that looks dangerous.
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Alligators were not “designed” to do anything, much less “take prey”. They are animals adapted to an ambush-predator lifestyle. That does not mean their sole purpose is to eat.
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Which, again, is a threat we brought on ourselves. Alligators live there? You’ve got a few options: 1) don’t go there; 2) go there and kill them all off in “self-defense” (or, I suppose, just kill some of them because they look threatening); 3) go there, learn about them, and adapt your own living environment to co-exist with them. Teach children that gators can be violent if threatened, or if you look like prey. Don’t go out of your way to attract them. And so on.
You appear to be of the mindset that would opt for #2. Sorry, but practically inviting an attack does not constitute a valid threat.
My point is, gators are what they are. We are the ones with the big brains here, so we are the ones who ought to be able to come up with a solution that goes beyond, “Must…kill! Must…protect!”
Indeed it would. Pity so few have actually tried it.
I was hoping folks would catch that and not think I was just being snarky.
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Now they’re stupid for something they haven’t even done yet?
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The only way Dinsdale would know “how he would feel”, is if he went through it himself; and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
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It does make some sence I guess, but being pissed off at the kid and parents for ruining your day is pretty selfish.
Of course, there’s a major difference or two between the situations - in this case they had no way of ascertaining which gator attacked, just that it was one ‘about yea big’. Damn things won’t wear tags ya know. and w/the Rotts, generally speaking, yes they do know which one (or they do when they kill off the dog - except in that CA case, where the two lawyers had some breed of dog, and they attacked a neighbor, killing her - both dogs were ultimately destroyed, though only one killed).
RE; the definative ‘taste of blood’ thing - From posts in this thread, seems that FL allows for the killing of gators over a certain size, regardless of history of killing, so I don’t think that’s relevant.
RE: the OP -sad that the kid died, yes, it’s his fault, stupidity isn’t always fatal but it is sometimes.
Re: killing of the gators, some one posted data re: how many gators have been authorized to be killed in FL, since they were over a certain size and near humans, and it was quite a number of them. I guess I’m not going to get too excited that the number increased by 10. I reserve the right to be outraged if and when the situation is different than is presented.
Was this directed to me? Since your post is under my post,
I already said I was for killing all the big gators around there. The population of gators is HUGE. The early 1970s are a distant memory. Oh, and I like wallets. I might get gator skin next time.
If you are going to emphasize my username in your post, you might wish to note that I indicated:
*I certainly cannot predict how I would respond to one of them dying young, especially violently. But I can imagine that …
I truly believe that …
I hope I would not …*
Sorry if that’s not enough qualifiers for you dumb-Phuck, especially given the excessive length of my post.
Holy cow, Beagle; this photo, from one of your links, is amazing. Reminds me of the gator-infested canals on my friend’s grandfather’s ranch outside of Tampa (in which we did not go swimming).
OOHHHHH, all those shiny little eyes!! Great picture…
That wasn’t what I intended to do. I just bold out of respect I guess.
I should have read your original post, instead of quoting you from a quote. That was stupid, I apologise.
Somewhat similar to the bear hunt dillemma in NJ, where according to state law, you can only kill a bear if it comes within 10 feet of humans.
Just imagine NJ paretns trying to explain the rules to their toddlers who play out in the backyard.
Rule #1 - No peanut butter jelly sandwiches out on the deck. All food and sweets must be consumed indoors.
Rule #2 - If a large furry carnivore with huge claws approaches you, yell for help and then lie down and play dead. Don’t move, I can only blast him with my shotgun once he gets within 6 or so paw lengths from you.
I wonder:
Whatever happened out in CA when people were up in arms over the hunting of cougars after a female jogger was mauled to death a couple years back?
Did a judge ever overturn the conviction of the elderly italian guy from (I think) Staten Island who killed a rat cause it was eating the tomatoes from his garden?
I’m somewhat “on the fence” on this issue.
Yes, when man invades the territory of predatory animals, than man becomes prey. However, the human settlement is well established, and from what I understand gators will come right up into town and BREAK into a house to eat the family pet/children. This cannot be allowed, humans have the right to survive too.
The boy was willful, and acting against common sense, and he paid the ultimate price. It’s still sad, but the tragedy is that the boy did not listen to reason.
I think the humans were within their rights to remove a percieved threat in this case. There have been other cases I sided with the critters, like when those people killed that pregnant shark recently.
I think that an ordinance should be made that does either one of two things. Either,
- prohibit fishermen from cleaning fish in that area to prevent attaracting more gators, or
- prohibit swimming in that area, and build a barrier to prevent gators getting past that area into town even during floods.
One way or the other, action should be taken to prevent this happening again.