Quote:
Originally Posted by Swamp Critter
I'm just wondering, have any of you ever been crabbing, castnetting shrimp, fishing from the bank or pier when someone started actually feeding alligators? I know people do it, but so far I haven't seen it. Now, some places, WAY out in the swamp or marsh away from people, it really isn't a problem. But if there's houses, camps, and especially a popular swimming area near by, it could create a truly dangerous situation if a gator grows big enough, loses it's fear of people and associates them with food. I think if I ever saw someone actually feeding them around people, camps, or pets (a small dog drinking at the edge of the water would be a tasty meal for an alligator), I'd probably be tempted to say something. I just wouldn't want to come off as a jerk about it. Any of you ever see that going on and said something about it?
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yes and yes
They had a couple (Baton Rouge city slickers) in Lake Verret would hang chicken legs a camp down to feed "their" gators at night by my buddies camp and we asked them not to. One day they were outside hanging them and we were swimming and drinking (partying is more like it, last day of senior year), when I noticed about a 8-9 foot gator swimming on lazily and thought nothing of it for a second. Well, it stayed there and watched us for a couple minutes and at one point we all got out to eat, well my buddy Scott was still in the water. I turned to yell at him when I saw the gator moving closer and closer a little faster and faster when Scott started swimming to the dock, the gator swam faster. Well, we always kept a .22 mag semi auto always locked and loaded on the dock for these reasons but never had to use it. Scott got about 2 feet from that dock and the gator must have been about 5-10 feet behind him when Jordon shot him (the gator) right between the eyes. After that, the city slickers started yelling about how we killed their gator, and we calmly tried to explain how feeding them makes them lose their fear of humans, but no. We're just a bunch of teenaged a-holes who grew up on the water and don't know anything about what goes on in the swamp or in the wild. Wildlife and Fisheries got called and the city slicker husband got physical while arguing with the Game Warden, he went to jail and the Game Warden simply said y'all did the right thing, but don't let this happen again; like it was our fault.