The Daily Mail is reporting that as each alligator is caught in the lagoon, it’s checked for the presence of human remains. I’m taking this to mean that the animal is dispatched, either with a bullet to the brain or by having its throat cut, and then it’s ripped open from gullet to tail. I can’t but help remembering - queasily - the Mayor’s line from Jaws (1975):
“… I’m not going to stand here and see that thing cut open and see that little … boy spill out all over the dock.”
And then, of course, there’s the poor mother from Nebraska. I wonder if she’ll echo Mrs. Kintner’s speech from the movie:
" You knew it was dangerous! But you let people go swimming anyway? You knew all those things! But still my boy is dead now. And there’s nothing you can do about it. My boy is dead. I wanted you to know that."
I wonder if they’ll serve up the gator tail in the restaurants? Gator is rather tasty.
I do wonder how much of this is guests surreptitously feeding the gators. My friend says one of the hotels extends over the lagoon, and some rooms have balconies overlooking it.
Yeah the parents thought the ‘NO Swimming’’ signs meant there were no lifeguard on duty . This is so tragic and I really don’t think the child body will be found , they been looking for it.
The problem with that particular ride is twofold - the big roller coasters at Universal went from “you can’t carry bags or anything large on the coaster” enforced with a visual inspection, to “your pockets must be completely empty to ride this coaster”, enforced with metal detectors. For the other big coasters, the metal detector was right where you enter the line, and the lockers were nearby, so no big deal if you got caught with something in your pockets. For this particular ride, the metal detectors were a good 100 yard walk away, up a hill, nowhere near the lockers, so it is a big deal to make people turn around and put away their phones. Hence the need to tell each person “You’ll be going through a metal detector, so better empty your pockets now.”
Yes, but I think that parents from out-of-state are more aware of the hazards of driving than they are of the small but non-zero risk of alligator attack. And they might reasonably feel that the benefits of driving are worth the risk, whereas the benefits of letting your kid wade in the water next to the resort might not be even worth a minimal risk of an animal attack.
I think at the very least it would be appropriate to post signs indicating the presence of alligators, with something like “these animals normally avoid humans, but have on very rare occasions been known to attack children and pets.”
Also, 10 bites a year is tiny relative to the population of the state, but most of those residents don’t live right on the waterfront, and those that do probably don’t let their children wade in waters where alligators are known to live. So while I’m sure the risk of such an attack is small, when we’re talking about uninformed tourists in waterfront property it might not really be as small as 10 out of 20 million.
That said, I’m not disagreeing with your point that the risk of such an attack is rare.
Agreed, they’re totally different situations. Western Lowland Gorillas (like Harambe) are classified as critically endangered, whereas the American Alligator is classified as “least concern”. Also, gorillas are highly intelligent animals (I presume much more so than gators) and are among our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. Also, the gorilla’s habitat was clearly marked. Also, the alligator attacked the child, and the child ended up (presumably) dead – whereas Harambe’s intent towards the child seems more ambiguous, and it’s the gorilla that ended up dead.
I don’t agree with the blaming and shaming of the parent in the Cincinnati Zoo case, and I don’t fault the zoo for their handling of the situation – but these two situations are really totally different beyond the fact that they involve close encounters between large animals and human children.
Plus, another major difference was that zoo officials made the decision to kill the gorilla when the kid was still alive. Many people hold out hope that both could be saved. Its been a day and the gator and kid are missing, you’re not saving the kid anymore, he’s gone, there’s no “should they kill the gator to save the kid” moment here, its “everyone put on your corpse handling gloves” time
A body has been recovered, intact, according to the press conference. They say they have to formally identify the remains, but have no reason to believe it’s anyone other than the missing little boy.
It’s not a matter of canals. Alligators will move in to any pond or puddle in Florida, it doesn’t have to be connected by water.
If they kill every alligator in the lagoon that’s fine. Alligators aren’t an endangered species any more, and if you exterminate them from a lake they’ll repopulate it soon enough.
Alligators are a lot less dangerous than crocodiles, and as has been mentioned attacks on humans are very rare. You’re a lot more likely to be killed by a dog than by an alligator, and much much more likely to be killed crossing the street.
Y’know, whilst this is a shocking tragedy all around, I’m glad that the little fella was found intact and not in the belly of an alligator. Before this news was released I was trying to imagine being one of the parents believing their child had been eaten and I couldn’t decide whether I’d want to know.
The body had only a few puncture marks apparently. The boy clearly drowned when the gator pulled him under. Stiill a dreadful tragedy but at least the parents don’t have to cope with the image of their boy being devoured by the animal.
Any thoughts as to why the alligator, having secured his prey, wouldn’t eat it?
Common behavior with a prey item that is too large to be swallowed directly. Gators may stash such underwater, presumably until decomposition makes it easier to tear the carcass apart.
If it’s such common knowledge to the locals that all bodies of water are infested with alligators and potentially dangerous, why was the shore accessible to the public in the first place? If you want the guests to be able to see the water, then just build patios extending out over it. With railings.
Here ya. Stupid fucking people! Don’t let your kid play around the shore of a place where alligators are a risk and there is a sign saying, “No Swimming.” If I see a sign saying, “No Swimming” I ask why. I do so because I like to know what the dangers around me are.
If I’m in Florida and I see a sign like that, especially in a resort with a man-made lagoon, I assume snakes or gators but I want to know which. The parents didn’t bother to ask or research, they let their kid act like prey and their kid was treated like prey.
Sad for them, but no more so than for parents whose kid wanders into traffic.
That’s what they do according to the report I just heard on the CBC. When they find a gator they euthanize it. I assume because the asshole gators chose to forfeit their lives when they trespassed on Disney property.
Same as bears that eat hikers get whacked for being in their natural habitat when a prey animal wandered into it.
My personal favourite thing about this practice is that almost inevitably one animal attacks one human and five or six animals get whacked in the hunt for the correct one.
This is so tragic and I really don’t think the child body will be found , they been looking for it.
