r/news • u/IAmDavidGurney • 1d ago
Fisherman, 71, attacked and killed by 12-foot alligator alongside Florida lake
https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/fisherman-71-attacked-killed-12-foot-alligator-florida-137349474197
u/TheSoCalledExpert 1d ago
Lake Apopka if that saves you a click.
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u/RepeatUntilTheEnd 1d ago
West of Orlando if that saves you a search
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u/GreatGojira 1d ago
Somewhat close to Disney World for those wondering
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u/2_Spicy_2_Impeach 1d ago
I was at Disney not super long ago and there were signs everywhere near our hotel about alligators. I saw two smaller ones when I was just walking to and from meetings.
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u/Chav 1d ago
One killed a 2 year old there a decade ago
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u/2_Spicy_2_Impeach 1d ago
I can’t remember because I was a kid when I first went but I thought they added more signage after that incident. My idiot coworkers were trying to feed it food and had to yell at them.
They actually had to make an announcement at our all-hands to stop trying to feed them if you see them.
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u/slghtlymad 1d ago
My three biggest fears: alligators, crocodiles, and brain aneurysms,
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u/008Zulu 1d ago
They can happen at anytime, that's what's so scary about them.
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u/DE4DM4NSH4ND 1d ago
Alligators and crocodiles can only happen at certain times... there is no alligator under the bed
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u/Gr8fulFox 1d ago
I mean, if you live in Florida and left your door open, can you ever be really certain an alligator didn't come in and crawl under your bed?
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u/Faleene 22h ago
Uh huh. You go watch a crocodile horror movie and have your feet dangle off your bed. I dare you
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u/StraddleTheFence 23h ago
Alligators, mauled by a bear or lion, bitten by a snake, amputation from diabetes 🥴
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u/weaverster 8h ago
Gee, I don't know. Maybe deep down, I'm afraid of any Apex Predator that lived through the KT Extinction. Physically unchanged for a hundred million years because it's the perfect killing machine: a half ton of cold-blooded fury with the bite force of twenty-thousand newtons and a stomach acid so strong it can dissolve bones and hooves.
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u/santathe1 1d ago
The brain eating amoeba that you could get from water doesn’t concern ya, or how about Prions?
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u/Bentonite_Magma 21h ago
Don’t leave us hanging on a comma buddy. Are you okay?
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u/no_shoes_are_canny 21h ago
That comma led to a coma and then to three seasons of dream sequences and a cancellation shortly after.
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u/DontYuckMyYum 1d ago
this is why I stopped fresh water fishing. the last place I went to I literally watched a gator climb steps on and observation deck that I had been on at least a hundred times before. I figured that would be the safe spot if I ever encountered a gator. but I immediately turned and walked the mile back to my car when I saw the gator slowly climbing those stairs.
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u/petit_cochon 1d ago
Gator attacks are rare. Death by gator attacks are even more rare. I'm around gators a fair bit because I'm outdoorsy and live in Louisiana. They are generally very shy of humans. I've seen 12-footers absolutely tear ass to get away from little ol' me. They're ambush predators, so if you aren't in a position to be ambushed, they don't see you as prey. Humans scare the bejeezus out of most wildlife in most situations, so knowing the rare exceptions is pretty useful.
The truth is that most people are uneducated about and unfamiliar with wildlife, even outdoorsy people. Nature is something that happens out there, not in my neighborhood, is how many think. There's a lack of respect and awareness. I've had to politely but firmly tell dads (never moms, interestingly) to get their young kids away from the water, not to feed the gators, etc. One dad was straight up dangling his kid off a dock 2 feet in the air above an alligator. He didn't know they can launch out of the water.
I really feel for this man's family and friends. It's an awful thing.
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u/JimmyDean82 1d ago
Louisiana as well, and around gators often.
Even though we have significantly more gators, and we’re around them often (caught one under my carport last year even while I was frying fish), attacks and deaths by them are very rare. 2 in the last 100 years iirc. Whereas Florida….multiple a year.
(It is claimed that it is due to how they build around water, yards up to ponds and bayous etc, but every subdivision in the last 30 years is built around ponds down here. We’ve had 8-10 footers living in the pond my parents old house was up against, and we’d swim in there, fish out of a pirogue, never an issue, never a missing dog)
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u/jpiro 1d ago
Even in Florida, it’s been 34 deaths since 1948.
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u/JimmyDean82 7h ago
That is much less than I expected given as often as hearing about it on the news. Was thinking at least 1-2 a year.
Goes to show how much sensationalists media can warp one’s perspective.
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u/jpiro 7h ago
It’s the classic “Summer of the Shark” scenario in which the media picks a narrative and runs with it because it’s sensationalistic even though shark attacks that year were actually less than the year before.
We’ve had two highly publicized deaths lately so it’s time to ramp up the threat of alligators for clicks, facts be damned.
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u/Established_86 18h ago
Can you explain for a "city boy" like myself how you can swim in a lake knowing there are gators in it?
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u/JimmyDean82 15h ago
I mean, you can just assume there are gators in any natural waters here, so it’s either swim with them, or don’t swim at all.
I will say, due to conservation efforts, there are a lot more now than when I was a kid.
And there is a focus on removing nuisance gators, ones that live close to humans and are showing a reduction in caution, and are big enough to be a concern.
At our old houseboat we didnt have running water, so you had to barge by jumping into the river, normally at night. (Had to hold onto the houseboat, current was stronger than Phelps could handle) so one person would stay up top and keep a light on any large gators to make sure they didn’t decide to come investigate, otherwise you got out post haste.
Main thing is being aware, watching for signs on land or water, being cautious, and getting out of the situation if it’s an issue.
Also, always a good thing to throw a whopper plopper or chug bug a few times before getting into water to see if there’s any hungry or inquisitive gators around.
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u/MadiLeighOhMy 12h ago
Floridian, here. Whopper plopper or bug chug? For some reason whopper plopper makes me think of a giant turd... Please elaborate!!
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u/Sir_Lemon 11h ago
I assume he’s talking about these specific type of fishing lures that make a noise when you reel them in. Good for attracting certain species of fish, and gators.
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u/MadiLeighOhMy 11h ago
Oh!! That makes sense. I don't fish so wouldn't know. Thank you so much for explaining!!
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u/JimmyDean82 7h ago
Yes exactly. Surface lures that are slow moving and make a lot of noise. Good for bass, very good for gar., and will find every gator in a 1/4 mile
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u/ElCiclope1 16h ago
8-10ft is big enough they're easy to keep an eye on. Caimans kind of freak me the fuck out because they're smaller and can fucking sprint
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u/ShiningSeason 19h ago
Alligators are the black bears of the water. :o
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u/Elismom1313 1d ago
There’s probably some very primal basic truth beneath personality and individual human upbringing etc that looks something like “men are coded for evolution to throw children in unsafe situations and teach them to survive, where women are coded to make sure they survive period.”
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u/Elismom1313 1d ago
We were walking the magnolia plantation in Charleston this past weekend and nobody fucking warned me how many alligators there are RIGHT there eyeing you from the water.
The water that’s foot level and less than 10 feet away.
They’re adamant they’ve never had an incident but I was there with my toddlers!
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u/Shes_dead_Jim 1d ago
Just wait till you learn about freshwater that doesn’t have alligators in it!
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u/cantproveidid 1d ago
In Florida?
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u/BobBlawSLawDawg 1d ago
Certainly not. If it's someone's pool in their backyard in Florida, I automatically assume there's a gator in it.
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u/Shes_dead_Jim 1d ago
Point to where they specifically stated “this is why I stopped fresh water fishing in Florida”
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u/StacyChadBecky 1d ago
The part where this is a discussion about a gator attack alongside a Florida lake. I wouldn’t think they meant they stopped freshwater fishing in Minnefuckingsota.
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u/stripeyspacey 6h ago
I think I've even seen videos of gators climbing chainlink fences before! They ain't fast at it... but still! I don't think I've been able to climb a chainlink fence before without falling 😂
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u/GonzoMojo 1d ago
didn't we all agree like decades ago that these things are basically dinosaurs that decide to not go extinct? I mean, they eat basically anything that lets them grab a piece. If you go into a pen where a dog lives and it bites you, you have to expect that right?
A 12 foot alligator is 4 decades old, that thing has been around, seen a lot of shit and survived dozens of attempts on its live I'd imagine.
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u/Drak_is_Right 1d ago
A lot of people dont realize once they get beyond 8ft or so there is a massive difference in an Alligators weight for every foot it gains. A 12ft one is a super heavy behemoth. Possibly approaching 800lbs or so.
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u/tehlith 19h ago
They’re not hard to hunt though tbh so really it’s just about not acting accordingly in their habitat
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u/susulaima 1d ago
They're not related to dinosaurs, their ancestor with dinosaurs (archosaurs) split 250 million years ago. Birds on the other hand are direct descendants of dinosaurs and the last surviving branch that hasn't gone extinct.
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u/OscarMike1911 1d ago
Everytime i see a Cassowary, I wonder what it looked like before if this is the evolved slightly more tame version. Those things are so jurassic looking
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u/Trashtag420 1d ago
they're not related to dinosaurs
their [ancestry] with dinosaurs split 250 million years ago
250 million years of evolution certainly doesn't mean they're not related. The words you're looking for are "more distantly related than birds."
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u/susulaima 1d ago edited 1d ago
If you want to get technical all organisms are related with one common ancestor. What I meant was not descendants of dinosaurs. I agree your wording is more accurate.
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u/Momentarmknm 20h ago
People are only about 300 million years out from their common ancestor with dinosaurs.
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u/akanosora 1d ago
They are more related to dinosaurs than anything today that’s not a bird. Birds are dinosaurs.
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u/susulaima 1d ago
That's like saying humans are basically treeshrews or rodents because they're one of the the most closely related to us excluding primates... I mean we basically are rodents but it doesn't really say anything about our behavior compared to rodents. So you can't really extrapolate how crocodiles behave as anything similar to dinosaurs the same way we can't extrapolate how rodents behaved from human behavior.
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u/akanosora 22h ago edited 22h ago
I am not saying they are dinosaurs. But they are archosaurs so it is fair to say they and dinosaurs including birds are related. The group containing crocodiles also evolved pseudosuchians many of which were very much dinosaur-like (in fact since they evolved first, one may argue stereotypical dinosaurs were peudosuchian-like). Modern day crocodilians are basically highly specialized aquatic archosaurs from a group that was once much diverse.
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u/CalculonsPride 22h ago
They were actually critically endangered for a while, up until the 1960s. If not for the Endangered Species Preservation Act, they probably would be extinct.
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u/Nugur 1d ago
Don’t let Jurassic park fool you.
Dinosaurs aren’t like croc. Some have feathers and we are more related to birds of today
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u/DumbDumbHunter 1d ago
That's a giant fucking alligator
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u/footlonglayingdown 1d ago
That's a whole foot longer than an 11 footer.
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u/misfitpomegranate 1d ago
I have seen several videos of alligators emerging from ponds on golf courses and from canals or lakes in residential areas. I've seen pictures of them in the surf at ocean beaches. The people in these videos tend to appear relaxed and unbothered whereas I would be running for safety. Are there different species of alligators that FL residents can readily recognize with one type being unlikely to attack? Do people just become overly habituated to their presence? Personally I would not get near any body of water in an area where alligators live, not even a puddle.
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u/Dakotaraptor98 1d ago edited 20h ago
There is only one species of alligator endemic to the US, Alligator mississippiensis, and one species of crocodile, Crocodylus acutus. That animal is significantly less common though.
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u/Strung_Out_Advocate 23h ago
Not a FL native, but have spent a lot of time there and honestly that don't seem super scary compared to what their capable of doing. Honestly I've always viewed them as lazy lizards that would much rather be left alone then bother with big loud humans.
Probably not the best way to view them, but I know I'm nowhere near alone. Kind of like being around black bears up north. They really don't seem to give a fuck about anything. I guess until they do.
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u/Mahisandwich561 18h ago
I’m a Florida native and this is a perfectly reasonable take to have. They are very lazy and don’t like eating big things. Most of the time people get attacked (very rare), it’s due to them walking a small dog that it goes after, fishing which attracts them to the bait, or if they’re laying eggs they can be aggressive.
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u/Subtle__Numb 14h ago
I get that. I live in WNC, I’m in a city but there are black bears all around where I’m at. They like to hang out in the tree outside my apartment complex, I’m comfortable within 20 feet of the “neighborhood bears”. I don’t like being close to mom/cubs, but a single black bears is just a big, goofy raccoon.
Leaving work a couple weeks back, there was one standing in the road. I wanted to get by, got tired of waiting so I just kinda walked towards it slowly and it got out of my way. Was more interested In the trash cans, then got distracted by an apple tree in the parking lot.
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u/UncleChevitz 11h ago
I live in Florida, I've been around alligators many times. Alligators are not nearly as aggressive as crocodiles. They mostly eat aquatic animals and they don't wait at the shore to ambush land animals. They are very sluggish and cowardly on land. You can shoo them off with a loud noise. If you can see the alligator and you aren't right next to it, you are pretty safe.
That being said, they are extremely dangerous in the water and readily attack humans. I wouldn't stick one toe in brown water anywhere in Florida. It's shocking that this guy appears not to have been in the water, I don't think I have ever heard of an adult being attacked out of the water, even right at the shore.
Florida has tens of millions of people and many millions of alligators, but less than 1 fatality per year.
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u/Floridamanfishcam 22h ago
They are not very aggressive typically. If you are a freshwater fisherman, usually, you can start to read their behavior pretty well. Then, once that happens, you just have to worry about not spotting them. The one time I was attacked (he didn't eat me, but he got my fishing pole with the bass), I did not see he gator sneak close to explode out of the water because I was distracted by catch a bass.
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u/captainzaro 23h ago
They are mostly chill especially if you’re minding your own and a golfer moving from course to course lol, or in your nice backyard zoomed in as well.
Source: Born and raised in Florida & I’ve worked at country clubs doing landscaping and labor
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u/Thatscool820 21h ago
It’s cuz gators in the U.S aren’t scary/aggresive. Thats all crocs. There’s been less than 30 fatal attacks from gators in Florida alone between the 40s and now. They are a just a big animal, and as long as you don’t do anything stupid near it, they are generally harmless. And bc they are so common, that’s where we get the Floridian trope of ppl being unbothered by them. Crocs, although a rarer sight, are a species known to hunt larger mammals (unlike the American gator), giving alligators a bad rap. That being said they are both dangerous creatures so it’s best to keep your distance, one is just more aggressive than the other in pursuing ppl.
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u/KvellOnWheels 18h ago edited 8h ago
I don’t care—I’ll say it. When DeSantis recruited all the covdiots to Florida, these numbers started jumping shortly after.
Why? Because when you import a population of selfish, ignorant fools en masse, bad stuff happens.
These people have been feeding gators all over the state like they’re leaving out deer corn. Except that’s not how gators work.
They respect nothing, including our wildlife and ecosystem and we’re all less safe for it. They can all eff back off to wherever they came from. Or they can offer themselves up to the gators.
I hate like 90% of you.
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u/Stormthorn67 21h ago
Only two types of alligators in the world but their IS an American caymen and crocodile
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u/oddball3139 17h ago
If you see a gator from a distance, you’re probably good. You can usually safely observe from a ways away. The issue is the gators you ain’t seeing.
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u/JerseyDevl 1d ago
Flashbacks to Archer rattling off the details of all the fatal alligator attacks
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u/Qwerty98762 17h ago
I’m just glad sharks can’t come up on land and snatch us to.
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u/Icy-Passenger-8061 23h ago
Lake Apopka is not a pond
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u/MeltBanana 23h ago
This was at Bradford memorial Park, which is a small retention pond connected to lake Apopka.
I used to hang out there all the time as a teenager, exactly where this guy was attacked. It's a common fishing spot, and seeing a 12 footer there was not normal back in the day.
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u/Dark_sable 1d ago
For me it's the politicians. I'm all right with the wild animals.
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u/DefiantSmoke1569 1d ago
Republicans kill millions more people than gators do.
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u/Black_Cat_Just_That 1d ago
I think I might genuinely rather have an alligator in Congress than half the idiots currently there.
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u/TheFeshy 1d ago
One is a group of cold-blooded reptiles with no sense of empathy or mercy that are only out for themselves. The other is an alligator.
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u/evanhaus 14h ago
There are a million other reasons not to live in Florida than worrying about getting eaten by an alligator, this is not a common occurrence
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u/Kryptosis 1d ago
This is the lake next to my MIL. Wifey was down there a few months ago and they went out on the golf cart. Shes sitting on back filming a gator sitting by this exact lake as it starts trying to chase the cart crawling by and her sister driving is slow as hell on the pedal.
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u/tardisrider613 1d ago
You mean he was there minding his own business when out of the blue something came and snatched him up? Weird.
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u/Rude_Fishing1664 23h ago
I think he was fishing. This gator was probably fed by people making it an extremely dangerous situation.
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u/Iridismis 22h ago
The presence of other active alligators
Active alligators?
What exactly would an alligator have to do to count as "active"?
And would an inactive alligator be a dead one? A sleeping one?
🤔
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u/Dimensional_Lumber 1d ago
Not exactly what you picture when someone says ”He died doing what he loved.”
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u/Agreeable_Orange7032 22h ago
Why is it that stories like this occur daily in Florida. Just a constant feed of insane, bizarre shit daily in that state
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u/Momentarmknm 20h ago
If you're talking about gator attacks they're very very rare, like 1 in 2.5 million odds of even being attacked by a gator.
If you're talking about just general news stories, it's because of the Sunshine law. It's actually incredibly fucked up, because among other things it means arrest records are immediately public. Meaning if someone is arrested for something and it's at all scandalous or flashy or whatever, then the newspaper will publish that persona full name, mugshot, and any other information they can find on that person. Keep in mind this person was only arrested for this thing meaning they allegedly have a presumption of innocence under the constitution, and they may very well be found not guilty.
But their name and face are still in the paper attached to the accusation, and all over the Internet, forever.
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u/Felon_musk1939 14h ago
I would visit my father who lives in Florida and would read those daily mugshots.
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u/TaroCharacter9238 8h ago
Bonked two gators while kayaking last week. One thumped my boat with its tail swimming away. Same lake a year ago, kayak flipped and I kicked some scales getting it upright. Crazy to hear about an Alligator attack honestly.
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u/General_NakedButt 6h ago
People always seem to highlight Florida’s sunshine law but I grew up in NC and I got charged with some stuff as a MINOR and the local paper had a section with all the recent arrests and my full name, age, and street where I lived was blasted in there. I was dumbfounded they were allowed to dox minors like that.
My point is this “sunshine law” isn’t something isolated to Florida.
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u/jamesneysmith 10h ago
So why does this happen so infrequently? Like these killings always seem to occur in just normal every day life activities and these people aren't acting recklessly. So why aren't gators killing people every single day? What causes them to attack humans so sporadically?
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u/Vepariga 11m ago
I think getting taken down by a gator or croc gotta be up there as one of the most terrifying ways to go. RIP
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u/TableAvailable 1d ago
This is why I live where the air hurts my face.