Rico's rants: Florida: more dangerous than you thought

The Washington Post has an article by WHO about yet another clusterfuck at Disney Orlando:

On the third day of their summer vacation at 'the most magical place on earth', the family of four from the state of Nebraska decided Tuesday night would be one to relax.
They sunk into the white sandy beach that stretches along Disney’s luxe Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, one of the features this particular hotel uses to entice its high-end guests, and watched their two-year-old son wade ankle-deep into the man-made lake known by vacationers as Seven Seas Lagoon (photo, above).
It was just after 2100. The sun had already set. The boy was just a foot beyond the sand.
Then the alligator attacked.
Horrified, the parents watched the beast grab their son and drag him deeper into the water, officials said at a press conference early Wednesday morning. The father, who was not identified, rushed in and grabbed desperately for his son. He cut his hand, but did not win.
By early Wednesday morning, authorities from Disney World, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had deployed more than fifty law enforcement officers in helicopters and boats to the Seven Seas Lagoon, desperately searching for the missing toddler. Divers and trappers were on standby, officials said, and they were using sonar technology. After nearly ten hours of searching, authorities had still found no trace of the boy.
Trappers had caught and euthanized four gators, authorities said at a press conference early Wednesday. None seemed to contain any evidence they were the gator that snatched the boy.
But, despite the expansive bodies of the water they were combing and the immense power and ruthlessness of the animal they were looking for, authorities remained optimistic they’d find the boy, but were vague about whether they believed there was any chance he could have survived.
“I do not believe it’s a needle in a haystack,” said FWC Executive Director Nick Wiley.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jeff Williamson echoed that hopefulness: “We’re just going to keep searching and searching until we can’t search anymore,” Williamson said.
As rescuers searched through the night Tuesday and into Wednesday, Sheriff Jerry Demings said his crews would not leave until they found the child. That remained the game plan by daybreak, when new crews of law enforcement arrived at the Disney complex to offer fresh eyes for the search.
Authorities did not release the name of the child or the child’s parents, but said grief counselors and victim advocates sat with the family throughout the night. Their grief, Williamson said, was incomprehensible. “They are very shaken up, extremely shaken up,” he told reporters. “Imagine if it were you? What would you be?”
Though alligator attacks are rare in Florida, this case, inside Disney World, involving a toddler, seemed to hit all involved especially hard. Williamson said many of the law enforcement officers on scene have children of their own and feel deeply empathetic for the boy’s parents, who witnessed the entire attack. “It's tragic, it's heartbreaking. There’s not other way to say it,” he said. “I cannot come to grips with what it must have been like to be in that situation.”
Witnesses that were nearby when the alligator snatched the boy gave law enforcement “detailed” information about what happened, but at an earlier press conference with reporters, Demings did not recount specifically what they said.
One witness dialed 911 at 2116, Demings said. The mother and father, who, at different points, both ran into the water after the child, shouted for the help of a nearby lifeguard. “The parents diligently tried to get the child,” Demings said. He said that, according to witnesses, the family had set up a baby pen about twenty to thirty yards from the water on the sand, reported CNN. With the parents and two-year-old boy was a daughter, who is four, the network reported. A witness told CNN a movie was being screened on the beach Tuesday night.
There were no other people in the water at the time of the attack, according to authorities. Signs posted near the lake warn against swimming in it, but there were no signs warning of alligators. The sheriff said there had been no recent reports of any nuisance alligators in the area, but questions about their presence in the lake will be part of the ongoing investigation.
The gator that got the child, Deming said, was reported to be somewhere between four and seven feet in length. “As a father, as a grandfather, we’re going to hope for the best in these circumstances,” Sheriff Demings said. “But, based upon my years in law enforcement, we know we have some challenges ahead.”
Florida hosts the largest alligator population in the US, and also made the creature its official state reptile in 1987, according to the National Zoo. About a million gators live across all seventy counties in Florida, according to the FWC, and inhabit fresh water marshes, swamps, rivers, and lakes across the state.
Despite that, Wiley emphasized that alligator attacks are an “extremely rare occurrence. Million of people enjoy Florida safely,” he said. “But you have to be careful.”
Since 1948, 383 people in Florida have suffered alligator bites, according to FWC records. Only two dozen of those attacks were fatal. Last year, one person was killed by an alligator and, before that, the last recorded fatality was in 2007.
Alligators and crocodiles have jaws strong enough to crack a turtle shell, according to the National Zoo, and prey on fish, snails, birds, frogs, and “mammals that come to the water’s edge.” They vise grip is nearly impossible to escape because the animals perform a spinning move, called the “death roll”, to subdue and drown their prey.
Officials told reporters that, according to records, this was the first alligator attack at Disney. Wiley said FWC works closely with the theme park to remove any “nuisance alligators", gators that are at least four feet in length and could pose a threat to people, pets, or property, according to the FWC website.
Wiley didn’t know how often his agency actually removes nuisance gators from the park, and he wasn’t able to provide an estimate for how many live in the waters on Disney property.
“Everyone here at the Walt Disney World resort is devastated by this tragic accident,” a Disney official told reporters Wednesday. “Our thoughts are with the family. We are helping the family and doing everything we can to assist law enforcement.”
The Grand Floridian Resort and Spa is nestled among Disney’s sprawling complex, positioned just south of the Magic Kingdom theme park in the Orlando area. It stretches along the west side of the Seven Seas Lagoon, a man-made lake that park visitors cross on ferries en route to the Magic Kingdom.
“Victorian elegance meets modern sophistication at this lavish bayside resort hotel,” reads the Grand Floridian description online. “Relax in the sumptuous lobby as the live orchestra plays ragtime, jazz, and popular Disney tunes. Bask on the white-sand beach, indulge in a luxurious massage and watch the fireworks light up the sky over Cinderella Castle.”
A.J. Jain and his wife, resort guests from Georgia, were on the same beach with friends near the scene of the attack, reported the Orlando Sentinel. “I’m just here to say a prayer,” Jain said. “I can’t imagine what those parents are going through. It’s been one tough week in Orlando.”
This attack is the third tragedy to strike the Orlando area in less than a week. Last Friday, 22-year-old Christina Grimmie, a former finalist on NBC’s The Voice, was shot and killed by a deranged fan while signing autographs after a concert in the city. Less than 48 hours later, fifty people were massacred and more than fifty were injured inside an Orlando gay nightclub in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
“We’re doing our best to deal with all of the situations we have going on here,” Demings told reporters Wednesday. “Our staff is very resilient, and tonight they’re very focused, if you will, on assisting family.”

Rico says it won't be long before people stop going...

In a related alligator story, The Washington Post has an article by Niraj Chokshi and Sarah Larimer:

Authorities in Florida have arrested a man accused of throwing a live alligator through a restaurant’s drive-through window.
Investigators identified Joshua James, of Jupiter, Florida as the man who tossed the four-foot reptile into a Wendy’s last fall, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission incident report.
He faces three charges related to the incident: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; unlawful sale, possession, or transportation of an alligator; and petty theft. James, 24, was taken into custody and booked into the Palm Beach County Detention Center.
James, wearing a baseball hat backward, arrived at the drive-through window to receive a large drink just before 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 11, according to the report’s summary of surveillance footage.
[Alligator pear salad: The strange foods that Americans loved a century ago]
Joshua James's booking photo. (Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office) Joshua James’s booking photo. (Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office)
“While the attendant has her back to the window and is at her register, the male driver reaches across the inside of his vehicle in the passenger area and throws an alligator from his vehicle into the drive through window,” the report reads.
A photograph in the report shows the American alligator flat with its legs splayed on the fast-food restaurant’s kitchen floor. An officer responding to the incident captured the alligator, taped its jaws shut “for safety” and released it into a nearby canal, according to the report.
An average female American alligator grows to just over eight feet in length, according to the National Zoo. The average male grows to just over 11 feet in length. The alligator thrown through the Wendy’s drive-through window was just 3½ feet long.
The officer later viewed surveillance footage from an adjacent gas station, which shows what appears to be the same driver acting “suspiciously” minutes before the incident.
[Alabama hunters are killing huge gators off the Gulf Coast. Is that a good thing?]
“The driver exited his vehicle by pulling himself up and out of the window of his door instead of opening the door itself,” the investigator notes, adding that the driver and a passenger later “continuously” look through the driver’s side window at something inside.
Once approached by authorities, James admitted to having picked up the alligator along the side of a road, driving to Wendy’s, and throwing the beast through the drive-through window.
A judge on Tuesday ordered James to stay away from all Wendy’s restaurants, to avoid possessing any weapons, to get a mental health evaluation, and to limit his contact with animals to his mother’s dog, according to WPTV. James’ parents described him to the television station as an outdoorsman and harmless prankster, adding that he viewed famous crocodile hunter and conservationist Steve Irwin as an idol. Ed and Linda James told the station that their son was pranking a Wendy’s employee he knew.
“It was just a stupid prank that he did that’s now turned into this; it’s stupid,” his mother told WPTV. “He’s a prankster. He does stuff like this because he thinks it’s funny.”

The American alligator is listed as “a species of special concern” in Florida, according to the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which notes that “state law prohibits killing, harassing, or possessing alligators.”
Nationally, the American alligator population “reached all-time lows in the 1950s, primarily due to market-hunting and habitat loss”, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. But in 1987, the alligator, a member of the crocodile family, “was pronounced fully recovered, making it one of the first endangered species success stories,” according to the government.
Still, the American alligator is a federally protected species, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, which notes that, although the American alligator is secure, some related animals, such as several species of crocodiles and caimans, are still in trouble. For this reason, the Fish and Wildlife Service continues to protect the alligator under the ESA classification as “threatened due to similarity of appearance.” The Service thus regulates the harvest of alligators and legal trade in the animals, their skins, and products made from them, as part of efforts to prevent the illegal take and trafficking of endangered “look-alike” reptiles.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the state averages about five unprovoked alligator bites per year. Since 1948, those “unprovoked bites” have resulted in twenty-two deaths in Florida.

The Washington Post has yet another alligator article, this one by Sarah Larimer, about an idiot who lost to one:

Authorities in Florida believe a 22-year-old man died after an attack from an alligator, which has since been euthanized.
The body of Matthew Riggins (photo) was discovered in a lake in late November of 2015, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Investigators believe Riggins, of Palm Bay, Florida, drowned following an encounter with the animal.
Some of Riggins’ remains were missing when his body was recovered, and there were bite marks present, Major Tod Goodyear of the sheriff’s office, told The Post.
“When the body was found, it had injuries consistent with an alligator attack,” Goodyear told Florida Today. “We had trappers euthanize the gator and, when we opened it up, there were remains inside that were consistent with injuries found on the body.”
In mid-November, Riggins told his girlfriend that he and another man were going to the area of Barefoot Bay and planned to commit burglaries, according to a sheriff’s office release. Authorities would later receive an emergency call from a local resident, who said two men clad in black were walking near Barefoot Bay homes there. The suspects ran when they spotted law enforcement, and authorities weren’t able to locate them again, even with the help of police dogs.
While the search was happening, Riggins contacted his girlfriend and told her that he and the other subject were being pursued, the sheriff’s office said.
Riggins never returned home, and was later reported missing. Authorities encountered the large, aggressive alligator when they discovered Riggins’ body last month.
“A forensic examination of the alligator located remains consistent with the injuries to Riggins inside the alligator’s stomach,” the release stated.

People has more on the situation at Disney:

Florida officials say Disney resorts routinely remove alligators from the area where a two-year-old boy was dragged into a lake on Tuesday. The toddler was wading in about a foot of water around 2130 on Tuesday when the alligator came out of the Seven Seas Lagoon at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa in Orlando and attacked.
Nick Wiley, executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, says that the resort has been "very proactive" in dealing with the alligators that are indigenous to the area. "They have a full-time staff observing these waters and they have essentially an open permit system where, any time they see an alligator or a complaint is called in, it can be taken out," Wiley said at a press conference on KETV. "These alligators are not relocated, these alligators have to be euthanized because, if you move them somewhere, you're just moving a problem," he continued. Wiley said that, while the resort "routinely" removes alligators from the area, he could not recall of any such removals "recently."
When asked about reports of another family with two young children who were reportedly chased by an alligator while watching a fireworks display near the same lagoon, Wiley said that that incident had gone unreported.
There are "no swimming" signs posted in the area where the boy was taken, however there is no signage warning visitors about the presence of alligators, a Disney spokesperson confirmed to People.
Authorities continue to search for the young boy, who is now presumed to be dead.
"At this point we're fifteen hours in and there were eye witnesses who saw the child taken under the water," Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. "It certainly is not survivable at this point for the boy to have been submerged for that time."
Alligators regularly attack small prey at or near the water's edge and, in most cases, they will not immediately swallow their prey, but instead hold it under water to drown it, Robert Reisz, a professor of biology at the University of Toronto, told CTV.
"It's not unusual behavior for an alligator to pull things into the water," Reisz said, adding that it's not uncommon for dogs in Florida to be snatched by alligators. "This is normal predatory behavior, it just happens to be a child."
Florida officials said that they had already captured and euthanized five alligators near the scene of the attack.
Animal behaviorist Jim Nesci told CTV that, because alligators are highly mobile, the gator who snatched the boy may have moved on from the area where the attack occurred.
Officials said they boy's father wrestled with the alligator, estimated to be between four and seven feet long, in an attempt to save the child but was unsuccessful. A search including dozens of law enforcement officials and rescue teams ensued.
On Wednesday, Disney closed all beaches in its resort area "out of caution," Disney confirmed to People.
An employee at a neighboring resort told People that guests and employees aren't even allowed to go on the sand. "This is a big deal. This isn't like a ride malfunction and someone got hurt. This is tragic. Everyone's freaked out about it," the source says. "The company is going to train us all about what we should do when this type of thing happens." The source added, "The beaches are closed. There is tape keeping people away from any of the lakes. They are taking this very seriously."