Florida on alert after alligators kill three women - hotlines swamped

[Woodmonkey]

Florida on alert after alligators kill three women

Alligator hunters were out in force today after two more women were mauled to death in Florida, less than a week after an aspiring young model was dismembered in a canal.

The three killings in six days have caused alarm in Florida, where fatal alligator attacks had previously averaged only one in every three years since records began in 1948.

May is the peak of the alligator mating season and the tail-end of the dry season, making alligators more aggressive and meaning that ten times the usual number are living in ponds and canals outside their usual habitat. Experts say that human encroachment on alligator territory is also a factor.

In the latest incident Annmarie Campbell, a 23-year-old holidaymaker from Tennessee, was seized while snorkelling in a remote spring in the Ocala National Forest, 80 miles north of Orlando.

Friends found her dangling from the jaws of an alligator and leaped on the thrashing creature to try to wrestle her free.

"They gouged its eyes and pounded on its snout with their hands. They were trying to pry open its jaws," said Kat Kelley of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

In a separate incident 140 miles away in Dunedin, the body of Judy Cooper, 43, was found mutilated in a pond.

"I saw what looked like a pair of trousers floating on the pond. Then I saw a pair of sneakers attached to it and my daughter went out there with a stick and pushed on it and it turned out to be a body," said local resident Fred Ferderber.

"Her arms were missing and she had a couple of bite marks on her sides."

Mr Ferderber, 50, said that he had often seen an 8ft-foot alligator sunbathing in the area behind his home in recent days. "When you got close to it, it would hiss at you. Most of the time, they’ll flee into the water - this one just sits there like it’s his spot."

Ms Cooper, a single mother from New Port Richey, Florida, had been struggling to overcome a crack cocaine addiction. Drug-taking equipment was found at the scene, though the local coroner confirmed that an alligator did play a role in her death. She leaves an 11-year-old daughter and a 23-year-old son.

The grisly killings came days after Yovy Suarez Jimenez, a 28-year-old student who hoped to become a model, was ambushed by an alligator while jogging alongside a canal in Sunrise, 30 miles north of Miami. Her arms were found in the belly of a 9ft 6in alligator that was later killed nearby.

Prior to the past week’s attacks, there had been only 17 confirmed and eight unconfirmed fatal alligator assaults on humans in Florida in the last 56 years. The number of "nuisance alligator" reports has risen steadily - there were 18,072 in 2004, latest figures show - as humans encroach more on alligator territory.

"Alligators are pretty much anywhere where there’s water in Florida and that’s where we’re building - around ponds and rivers and canals...this creates something of a dangerous situation," said Kent Vliet, an alligator expert at the University of Florida’s department of zoology.

"There are almost 16.5 million residents in Florida, more than 75 million visitors a year and one to two million alligators, so interactions are inevitable... But this level of fatalities is extraordinary

The Source

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Florida Alligator Hotline Swamped

Alligators are on the prowl in Florida and Sunshine State residents are keeping an eye out for the potentially deadly creatures.

Operators at the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program in Okeechobee are being bombarded with calls after three women were killed in different areas by alligator attacks in one week.

Program officials say they logged 225 telephone calls on Monday alone, more than double the amount of calls answered last year.

Operators were staying late to handle the calls.

In the past week, three women have been killed by alligators.

Florida residents were being asked to call 866-FWC-GATOR to report alligators 4 feet or longer that pose a threat to them, their children or their pets.

The influx of calls means big business for gator trappers. Trapper Todd Hardwick said he typically gets about four nuisance alligator calls each day, but he's now getting 15 requests to have the animals removed from residents' properties.

Meanwhile, the medical examiner in Ocala National Forest said a woman attacked and killed by an alligator while snorkeling in a secluded recreation area last week died from drowning and multiple blunt-force injuries.

Annemarie Campbell, 23, of Paris, Tenn., suffered lacerations on her head, neck and upper torso and suffered multiple rib fractures, Associate Medical Examiner K. Podjaski said Tuesday.

Those with Campbell found her body inside the alligator near Lake George on Sunday and beat the animal until it released the body.

Officials are still trying to locate the reptile they believe to be between 7 and 9-feet long.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission planned to send a Cessna plane over the area where the attack took place. A spotter in the plane will relay anything noteworthy to trappers in a boat.

Campbell's body was one of two found Sunday that authorities said was killed by alligators.

The body of Judy W. Cooper, 43, of Dunedin, was found in a canal 20 miles north of St. Petersburg.

In Sunrise, the body of Yovy Suarez Jimenez, 28, was found May 6. She was attacked by an alligator while jogging near a canal, authorities said.

An alligator on Tuesday sat itself on one woman's front porch in Tampa, barring the homeowner's exit. A neighbor called the woman and told her to stay inside. A police officer showed up and shot the gator.

"He opened his mouth, hissed at me, got up on all fours and started walking towards me, so I fired one shot into the alligator's head," said the officer. "The alligator quickly went back into the pond it came from."

Doug Tobin of the Pasco County Sheriff's Department said the current drought-like conditions in Florida, combined with the start of mating season and the alligators searching for food has added to the recent feeding frenzy. The rapid pace of development in Florida also is disrupting the gators' habitat.

"It certainly is in the forefront in the media down here … but as far as the attacks have been concerned, the attacks have been fairly aggressive so it's getting a lot of attention," he told FOX News.

He said the gator at the woman's home in Tampa was "really extremely aggressive," pushing his snout onto the front door and puffing his chest. There had been reports that the gator was being fed by neighbors and that may be why it was so insistent on the porch. Tobin stressed that it's extremely unwise to feed the deadly creatures, which may otherwise leave humans alone.

Alligators are normally a protected species but because the population in Florida has now stabilized, the hunting season has now been extended there from five to 10 weeks and will continue until Nov. 1.

The Source

[Snowden]

Ignorance is certainly not bliss, is it. Why would anybody be stupid .. oh, what a silly question. People are uninformed and haven't sense enough to think or to ask questions.

May is mating month for snakes and lizards, all those "cold blodded" critters. They are more apt to attack then than any other time of year. We even avoid our resident black snakes on this property during May. It's the one time of year they will bite. They aren't poisonous, but the bite may still cause an allergic reaction and/or infection. Not a happy thought in any case.