The Odyssey of the Gator
I may have touched once or twice on the apparent casual nature with which South Floridians approach the alligator. As a nordic gal who’s spent her entire life with sensibly substantial and preferably steel-reinforced barriers between me and the crocodilian species I find this attitude slightly mad, terrifying and absolutely fascinating at the same time. Just to give you a flavor of this craziness, here’s an example of a typical morning exchange:
Man on trail: “Good Morning”
Me: “Good Morning”
You see, it all starts off rather normal, lulling you into a false sense of saneness…
Man on Trail: “Did you see the two gators on the lake back there”, he asks casually
Me, starting to feel wierd and lightheaded: “errgh”, I manage to choke out
Man on Trail: “One of them was a mighty big one” he adds, almost as an afterthought
Me: “yeeeesss….rather, errrr, interesting” I sputter trying to appear nonchalant and relaxed
Of course at this point my brain is spinning out of control and my mind feels like it’s time-warped into another dimension. My inner dialogue is going more along the line of “WHAT…are you MAD?? Uncaged alligators are roaming FREE on the Lake with death-clamp jaws ready to FEED on unsuspecting Scandinavians with NO restraint???!!” I imagine this followed by a scene somewhat akin to the panic button from “Chicken Run” where I run headlong down the trail, screaming uncontrollably “Alligators are loose! RUN, FLEE, SAVE YOURSELVES….aaaaahhhh”
Of course, none of this actually manifests. With incredible restraint, possibly cultivated by several years of college in England, I manage to mumble something about the weather and continue weakly on my walk in a terrified daze.
Yet all this is considered completely normal and acceptable down here. Gators at the lake, in the canal, on the golf-course etc. They’re part of the local wildlife, completely natural and are conversed about in casual passing the same way you might mention a bird that you glimpsed or the fine weather we’re having today. The gator becomes an icon and almost a State Pet, being adopted in school logos, radio names and local signs. In a word, it’s considered almost “cute”.
I can’t rightly come to terms with it and I guess, not being a Floridian, I probably never will, but I did manage to come up with my little own poem about the whole situation which, although amateurish and poorly written (and in no way at all related to the Greek version..and rather shorter I might add) really helps to sum up my feelings on the matter. I’ve named it my “Odyssey of the Gator”…
The first day I saw the gator
Which was terrifying
Because I knew he was there
The second day I heard the gator
Which was bone-chillingly worse
Because I couldn’t see him
But I knew he was there
The third day I neither heard nor saw the gator
Which was infinitely more horrific
Because I couldn’t see him
And I couldn’t hear him
But I knew he was there
The fourth day I saw the gator
Which pretty much did me in
Because now, I knew he was there
You’ll notice I don’t have any gator-pictures in this post, not being in an appropriate state to go track down the monsters. Don’t let that fool you, however…they’re out there somewhere….
POST Publication Edit: Fear not my friends. Although I may appear truly terrified my post is somewhat tongue-in-cheek and makes ample use of my warped sense of humor. I’m not really as worried as all that and find the gator rather fascinating…after all I have a hubby who’s quite the fan 🙂
Us folks in Arizona are just a wee bit careful around alligators too. Fortunately we don’t have a lot of them here in the desert. We do have collared peccaries — also called javalinas — that like to knock over our bird feeder and eat some of our plants.
Oh, the peccaries!! Yes, of course! We used to run into them back when we backpacked in CA. Once woke up in the middle of the night with a whole pack of them grunting outside the tent. Good memories! Nina
Nina, here’s the great part….Gators can jump striaght out of the water up to half of their body length…I think a gator averages at least 8-10 feet so thats 4-5 feet straight up out of the water. Learned that little tid bit on a tourist airboat ride in the Everglades. Never knew that as a Floridian, b/c we don’t take those airboat rides!…we leave all the info for the tourists. I now prefer to stay blissfully ignorant and look the cute gator mascot on a mountain bike at Alafia State Park. Hey northerner’s tell us Floridians we are crazy to be afraid of bears…we don’t think you need to be afraid of Gators…we don’t taste good to them anyway!
That is quite the piece of trivia & I did not know! Will now have to watch for jumping gators 🙂
Just returned from a cruise to the Miami port and spent the day afterward at one of those airboat/gator farm places. The man who knew the gators well really helped me understand their ecology, their importance in Florida, and like all wildlife, how to respect them and enjoy them. Really, you might be less afraid after you really learn about them completely. It’s basically about not being stupid and feeding them or harassing them or something like that.
You’re right of course. I did (many years ago) visit a gator-farm and learnt quite a bit about the big boys. They are quite fascinating creatures. Nina
The only thing to be concerned about is walking a small barking dog around gators. It’s like trolling. Gators love small dogs.
But they almost never bother people. We taught our kids to water ski on a lake where allegedly 6000 gators lived. And they learned real quick how to ski without falling : )
Now that’s what I call a serious training program! And yeah…heard about the gators liking small dogs…I guess they would be just the right size for an afternoon snack 🙂
Nina, I just read on Wikipedia that only 25% of alligator attacks are fatal, so evidently if you do encounter one of these Cretaceous-period predators, you have decent odds of emerging with just a maiming or a missing limb. On the other hand, Wiki also says that of the 13 fatalities attributed to gators/crocs between 2000 and 2010, all but 2 happened in Florida(!). It sounds to me like you’ve faced the swamp beasts and beaten the odds (so far). Why tempt fate?!? It’s time to get a movin’.
I would agree! As a funny side-story we stopped at a reststop today that just happened to have a lake (which happened to have alligators in it, of course), and learned from a local that you shouldn’t feed them marshmallows since it kills them. This got me thinking that a brilliant form of self-defence would be a pocket-full of marshmallows. Only negative to this fabulous plan is that it takes a few hours for the effects to kick in. So, I guess it’s a question of who holds out the longest……
So where was Polly? Can you let her off leash?
I guess we’re spoiled at Markham? Or ignorance is bliss??
We are going sailing this weekend! Very excited! Back to SOFL Tuesday. Fin hasn’t had any social life here!
We’re OK going off-leash as long as we stay away from the lake. Polly’s been very good about not going in the water here, although Fin could probably change that 🙂 Definitely spoiled at Markham. We’ll have to make sure we meet in the mountains next time so the doggies can splash around happily. Enjoy the sail!! Give Fin a big sloppy kiss from Polly!
A few years ago we were canoeing down the Peace river, when, just like in the old Tarzan movies, a gator came flying off the river bank and into the river! This was about 50 feet ahead of us and convinced us to reverse course for a time. It was an impressive sight as the gator lunged out over the water a good 10 or so feet before plunging into the river. We found out after the fact that the gator was a nesting female and had made the same demonstration to other canoeists.
If I were you, I would remain cautious, Scandinavians are an alligator delicacy.
Wow….that’s quite the picture. I would’ve turned around too! And yes, I agree…I think I’m a bit of a local delicacy. In fact I seem to be a natural mosquito-magnet, an ideal armadillo-attractor and very (very) possibly a tasty alligator treat. Nina