Alligators are common in Florida, where I live, and most of them don’t bother anybody. But people pour in to Florida every day, and they seem to have one of two reactions to the alligators they find here before them. They are either terrified of them, or they think they are being compassionate by feeding them. It is illegal to feed the alligators, because they lose their fear of humans and begin to look on them as a source of food. I mean literally – they can and do eat people. But whether an alligator becomes large enough to be perceived as a threat, or it is being fed, and therefore really is a threat, someone will call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to have it removed. They, in turn, will call one of their licensed nuisance alligator trappers, one of whom is my brother.
The trappers have to be licensed by the State, and then for each individual alligator, they must have a permit. First, a call comes in about a nuisance gator that someone is freaking out about in their neighborhood. There is always someone on call, who has the trapping truck with the fitted out cage and the winch and cable for the really big boys. He will print out the permit and head off to find the alligator. The trappers could be engaged in all manner of things when they get the call. One memorable day, all of them were busy. One was at a funeral, another giving a speech at a civic organization dinner and another the best man in a wedding. The sheriff who made the call was quite impressed with the caliber of the trappers, he said. One had come by in a tux, and later another stopped to help, wearing a suit! But for the most part they wear jeans and a t-shirt, or waders, because catching an alligator is hard, wet, dirty, sweaty work.
First, of course, is locating the offending alligator. Alligators can be very shy. Sometimes one will hide out in a drain hole for days before he can be hooked. But when the proper alligator is located, the real fun begins. The gator has to be caught, and he’s not likely to cooperate. If he is on land, the alligator will try to run away, but when the trapper persists, the alligator turns to fight. He will hiss, and opening his mouth as wide as he can, he’ll begin jerking back and forth, prior to lunging at the trapper, who has to place a noose over his head. If the alligator is no where to be seen, the trapper will haul out the boom box and play alligator calls until the alligator in question appears to check it out. But if he gets shy or suspicious, or is just down too steep of a bank or in deep water, the trapper must lure him by baiting a hook with a cow lung. Gators find cow lung irresistible.
Once the noose is around the neck, or the bait is taken and the alligator is hooked, the gator, who is hundreds of pounds and incredibly strong, resists capture by rolling over and over. Depending on the size of the gator (and the size of the trapper!), quite a battle can ensue. It can take hours to haul in a really big one, say a 10 footer, especially if he’s down the embankment in the water and the trapper is trying not to be pulled in on top of him. With a really big, strong alligator, sometimes he must be hooked by a cable to the winch on the truck and slowly reeled in that way. Eventually, the gator is going to be on the shore with an exhausted trapper. The gator is usually pretty exhausted too. But he’s also mad as a wet hen. Maybe madder. He’s hissing and trying to intimidate his harasser. After the noose is around the alligator’s snout, the trapper will jump on the gator’s back and, grabbing his jaws from behind, force them together and hold them, while taping the alligator’s mouth shut. An alligator has a big mouth so it takes a strong man and a good bit of tape to get the job done. Once the mouth is taped, half the battle is done.
But the other half is still to come. The alligator must be gotten in to the back of the trapping truck and in the cage. As I mentioned, gators turn round and round, not end to end but their whole body length. My brother had his finger broken once, when it got caught in the rope. When a trapper has one on the end of a rope, trying to drag it up in to a truck, it can be awkward at best to try to avoid the thrashing tail and sharp claws while they are rotating wildly. But once the alligator is in the cage on the truck, the trapper can relax for a moment.
Until the sweet looking little old lady comes shuffling up. To thank him for catching the menacing alligator, right? No! To cuss him out soundly for being so mean to this poor little creature. The same creature that would have gladly gobbled her up – and her little dog, too. Every trapper has horror stories of the body parts of pets or people that he has discovered near, or has had to pull out of an alligator. But the hot, dirty, exhausted, bruised nuisance alligator trapper listens politely, thanks her for her opinion, gets in his truck, and drives off with the alligator. Where he goes from there depends a great deal on the size of the alligator. Anything under 4 feet is relocated. Larger ones can be sold to alligator farms, or their hide and meat can be sold. But no one is getting rich from trapping alligators. My brother, and others like him, are trying to perform a hard, dangerous service for a not always grateful community. Whether you are afraid of alligators or interested in preserving them, the kindest and best thing you can do for all concerned is leave them alone, and don’t ever, ever feed them. As long as people keep feeding them, my brother and trappers like him are going to keep getting calls to remove nuisance alligators.
