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Another day, another gator

Pasco sheriff Deputy Chris La Framboise shot the alligator with a .223-caliber rifle.

By THOMAS LAKE
Published May 16, 2006

NEW PORT RICHEY — The 9-foot alligator had the 75-year-old woman trapped in her house, and the deputy raised his rifle.

The gator hissed, advancing through the tidy yard toward Pasco County sheriff’s Deputy Chris La Framboise. He fired.

One .223-caliber round pierced the hide of the gator’s head, but the showdown wasn’t over.

“It didn’t hurt him,” said Mickey Fagan, a professional gator trapper who arrived a few minutes later. “It just made him mad.”

Fagan caught the gator on a metal hook, taped its mouth shut and wrestled it into his trailer.

The incident Monday afternoon highlights a gator hysteria that is sweeping the state.

Calls to the state’s nuisance alligator hotline have spiked in recent days, following three fatal attacks in a week, including one death in Oldsmar.

On Saturday, a woman near Bradenton got a warning citation for hunting without a license after she shot a gator that attacked her golden retriever.

“It seems like we are having a higher call volume because of the recent incidents,’’ said Blair Hayman, a biologist with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Nuisance Alligator Program.

In the past five years, the number of nuisance alligators killed has remained around 6,000 to 7,000, she said.

But in 2005, 7,745 nuisance alligators were killed between April and December, Hayman said. Since January, nuisance alligator trappers have reported 1,981 nuisance alligators killed. That number does not include the alligators killed this month.

“The number of alligators that we’ve harvested and the number of complaints that we’ve received has been increasing,’’ Hayman said.

Fagan, who operates in Pasco and Hillsborough counties, said he has personally killed more than 60 alligators since March 18.

“We’re getting more complaints,” he said, “but you’ve got to keep in mind there’s 700 people that move to the state every day.”

Few on Wellfield Road will miss the alligator that was dispatched Monday. Fagan took it to his slaughterhouse in Lacoochee and shot it in the brain.

Corey Gordon, 49, has four small dogs, which are prime targets for aggressive alligators.
“If they’re not backing off from humans, they’ve already lost their fear,” Gordon said. “At that point, you’ve got to take care of it.”

Fagan was back on the job Tuesday in nearby Seven Springs. Residents on Tidewater Road had complained about an alligator in their yards, so Fagan set a trap, baited it with beef lungs and waited.

The alligator, nearly 11 feet long, swallowed the hook attached to a line, and Fagan returned to take it away.
“Pulled ’im in,” he said, “just like a fish.”

Thomas Lake can be reached at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245, or at tlake@sptimes.com. Times staff writer Shadi Rahimi contributed to this report, which also used material from the Associated Press.

[Last modified May 16, 2006, 23:06:46]