" Lake Wales, Fla. — An alligator attacked and killed a woman on a central Florida lake Tuesday afternoon, authorities said."
Just a few weeks ago, in same general area, another kayaker was injured by an alligator.
When I paddled the coast in Far North Queensland (Aus) I was very careful of staying away from the crocs (eg: no campsite if croc tracks are nearby)
Then, for the first few years living here in FL, made sure to be aware of alligators, the last few years pretty much taking them for granted.
Maybe it’s time to swing back the other way toward being aware of them more (especially in mating season when they’re more active).
That’s absolutely heartbreaking to hear about the tragic incident in Lake Wales. My thoughts are with the woman’s family and everyone affected.
Situations like this really remind us how important it is to stay alert and informed when exploring outdoor areas, especially around lakes and wildlife zones.
Personally, I’ve started using the ShareKayak app whenever I plan outdoor activities. It helps me find safer locations, check for weather alerts, and even gives me useful info about the area before I head out. It’s quietly become part of my routine for peace of mind.
Not quite an alligator encounter but… While we were racing the Suwannee 230 this weekend I was clobbered over the head by 5+ foot Sturgeon at 3am, knocking me out of the boat and capsizing our C4.
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I feel like those things are more dangerous than gators. I’ve photographed many gators, some big ones at pretty close range from my kayak w/ no issues but sturgeons are scary the way they just jump out of the water like that.
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omg…wow! That is crazy.
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‘Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?’
how was the race?
Caviar’s gone to the head!
Beluga’s buddy butts head, headway is dead.
Gourmand game gone bad flies from Suwanee,
air invader egged-on far from Caspian Sea!
And thus dinner bell chimes in a belfry,
for those that “hut-hut” stirring sturgeoness spree.
Do Corps de Canoe maintain fast course in inversion,
or “roe-roe” their boat pounding paddles at perversion?
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it was a year of adversity. Extremely low water contrasted against torrential rain with massive electric storms made for slow going this year. The sturgeon incident knocked us off of our competition enabling them to break away but still managed to hang on for a decent finish. Lots of of crazy stories
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When you read these remember the first reports are always inaccurate, wrong. Canoer not kayaker. Gator was hit/startled , woman landed on the gator, gator was in self defense mode, not attacked. Most of the pictures were not tiger creek. Still she died.
FWC is the responsible investigator.
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I lived near Biloxi, Mississippi for a couple of years. My wife & I rented a house that backed onto a bayou. The yard had a good chain link fence. Just outside it, we had a small pier, and, adjacent to the pier, a good put in. There were 3 gators in that stretch of bayou, ranging from 10-12 foot in size, so big enough to be dangerous. I avoided them, but they do conceal themselves well, and occasionally I would be surprised by one appearing near the kayak while I was afloat, though none of them acted aggressively.
I regularly paddled from our yard, a mile or so wending through the bayou, out to Biloxi Bay, and then into the Mississippi Sound (i.e., that part of the Gulf that is inshore of the barrier islands, about 10 miles out). One day, a good-sized gator in the Bay slid off the bank and came directly at me at speed. I took off at full speed, and was able to outrun it, but it got my attention.
I thought then, and think now, that a lot of the information about alligators being relatively unaggressive, and therefore not particularly dangerous, is based on observations that no longer apply. By the mid-1960’s alligators had been hunted down to endangered species levels. The numbers were low, the ones that were around were smaller–just a matter of being younger in high hunting environment, and they were very wary. Alligators, like most other animals, avoid humans when humans are predators. In that context, they weren’t much of a threat. I realize that the endangered status has been lifted, but we still have more restricted hunting than in the “old days”, there are a lot more gators today–millions of them, a lot of them are a lot bigger, and, since they aren’t hunted nearly as aggressively, they are less afraid of humans. I think all of that translates into them being a lot more dangerous than most people realize.
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Interesting thoughts about alligators, aggressiveness, and hunting. Native Americans have stories and some have a reverence for alligators but also they had some tales about huge aggressive gators. I have to believe if you are an aggressive gator now a days and are considered a threat then you will be eliminated. It is hard to say what affect humans have had on gator behavior over the centuries.
I have seen my share in the South and try to keep some distance when possible. I believe in being “critter aware”. Snakes, alligators, and bears are something I like to admire from a distance.
A very good friend who passed away a few years ago had an unintended encounter with a very big gator.
He was wading fishing for bass in Newnans Lake, FL. It was at sunset, and he wanted to catch his limit of Largemouth Bass which he managed to do putting the last one on the stringer attached to his wading belt. His boat was over 100 yards away if he waded around the point of cypress trees he had fished, but much closer if he cut through the trees. This he decided to do since it was starting to get dark. Going through the trees he bumped into a log that he stepped onto. When it moved, he knew it wasn’t a log. The gator whipped around and came up out of the water with its jaws wide opened. With a front foot on the chest of my friend came down on top of him pinning him to the bottom. He said he thought he was a dead man the gator out weighted him. Then it walked off him. After which he found himself balancing on cypress knees holding his fishing rod. He didn’t want to get back in the water. He said it was the hardest thing he ever did but he waded back to his boat before it got dark.
As a side note he and two others, one with an airboat, and the other with a food approved facility were some of the first to be allowed to commercially hunt gators when they became unlisted and FL opened a season. They took a 13 foot, 500-pound gator out of Newnans Lake.
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A tragedy all the way around. Pure accident. And now they will probably set loose an army of yahoos to kill every alligator that looks like it may have been involved in the incident.
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I have lived in Florida my entire life and I am 64, one of the biggest problems with gators is people feed them, or when fisherman clean their fish and throw the waste into the water that conditions them. Gators are very territorial and to them a kayak that sits 8" off the water is an intruder into their territory, especially during mating season. Younger gators have been found in drainage lines during mating season to hide from the larger gators. I had an old gentleman who was born and raised in Collier county (next to the everglades) wanted to take me & my brother frogging- no problem we can gig frogs from a boat. That is not how it is done, you wear a pair of waders, carry a light and your gig. I asked about gators, his response gators will not bother you at night, it is the cotton mouth snakes you have to worry about. If you see a cotton mouth coming at you, you will want to grab it behind its head and through it as far away as possible. I think he told us the story to make us teenager afraid, it worked. LOL
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So that explains why thems withs waders are in it for a very short gig! And thems withs boats are in for a longer gig. Also sounds like your gig instructor may have been Amos Moses’ daddy.
And if Chief Brodie had grown up in the Sunshine State, I’d imagine he might have said, “We’re gonna need a bigger punt!”
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Oh.
And thems that tosses cottonmouths
best shoot straight in their toil.
Whilst not as deadly as Colt Pythons
they’re hellacious in their recoil.
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They are hunted in Florida every fall. If you hit them or scare them they go into fight or flight.
Most gators submerge 25 to 50 yards away. They go to the bottom and be very still. If you coast over them they usually just stay still. Hit them and things get wild. Defense mode
Gators that are in high traffic areas are used to people like silver river and don’t leave . These are the dangerous ones.
Gators don’t like boat motor sounds. Generally if they come to the boat ramp on Wednesday they leave when the weekend comes.
My observations are from now.
Feeding is a bad thing. In the Okefenokee fishermen often kill mud fish and slide them over the side. Gators have learned this. So when you paddle in
Steven Foster State Park, Ga the gators follow the boats around.
I tried to eat mudfish a long time ago. Good thing gators like them.