Idiot gets bitten by alligator in Florida

[imdjh]

http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2009/9/25/525431.html#

It doesn't sound like news, does it? Alligators ad Florida are like rattlesnakes and, well, Florida.

But here is the catch- this IDIOT got bitten at a park where people go to look at alligators. She got bitten by an alligator that I have visited many times. No, we don't chat or have lunch together, I just like going to the park and watching this particular alligator because he's out in the open most of the time. I can park and walk twenty feet to commune with nature.

But because this idiot walked her dog next to a known alligator habitat, he's probably being fried up and served with cocktail sauce somewhere as we speak.

I keep calling her an idiot for a reason- she is. Normal everyday people know what Sawgrass Park is about. Normal everyday people walk up to this retention pond on the way in and look carefully at the water, EXPECTING to see an alligator from a respectful distance. This idiot, who has a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries deserves to be publicly humiliated. Instead, they are calling her a victim. She's not a victim, she's an idiot and an alligator is dead because of it.


PINELLAS COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- A Clearwater woman is the first person in more than three years to be attacked by an alligator in Pinellas County.

Diane Blackwood, 48, was walking her dog on a leash Monday afternoon at Sawgrass Lake Park in St. Petersburg when she noticed a swirl in the water.

"I was standing under a tree for some shade,' she said. "My dog was near the water when I noticed some swirling water. I knew it was a gator and called for my dog as I turned to run away. That's when I slipped and fell on the embankment. My dog ran away."

[CanonRay]

1. Apparently the dog is smarter than her.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. What makes me angry as a Floridian...

....are when all the NY/NJ transplants who move down here into the gated communities with lakes and ponds, and then work themselves up into a tizzy when they see an alligator swimming around minding his or her own business, and then demand the alligators be removed from the lakes.

Let me see--alligators have been in Florida for millions of years. Most of these jokers have been in Florida for just a couple of years.

I'm not a native Floridian (although I've long wished that I was), but one of the things that steams me are all the out-of-state transplants who come down here, and then do nothing but complain about things natural to Florida--alligators, the heat, hurricanes, etc. Those are the ones who I really think give my state a bad name at times.

[Ineeda]

13. don't forget the armadillos and gopher tortoises

who dig holes in those precious (water-guzzling) lawns.

[Ilsa]

3. Lucky dog. Where I live, the idiots let their dogs get eaten by alligators.

They'll be in a park where alligators are living and signs are all over the place to keep their dogs leashed. Of course here in Texas, they'll exercise their disdain for rules that keep animals safe and unleash them to roam into reach of the gators. Idiots. Usually yuppie idiots.

[imdjh]

5. Yep. Sounds like the dog was offleash in this case too.

edit- although the article says the dog was on a leash. But it also says she was standing by a tree for shade, I don't recall a shade tree within leash range of a dog being next to the water.

[Arkansas Granny]

8. The article says she walking the dog on a leash. Maybe she dropped it when she fell.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. And where I live, the idiots let their little dogs and kitties get eaten by coyotes

Stupidity is rampant.

[EFerrari]

18. We have coyotes right here, too, and because it's out in the sticks,

idiot people come here to dump pets they don't want. Coyote dinner.

But the same thing happens in Golden Gate Park.

[Tansy_Gold]

21. And on the golf courses in AZ

The rabbits are thick on that nice green grass, and the coyotes aren't far behind. Anyone who lives along a golf course in AZ is warned over and over not to leave their little pets outside and unattended. They, of course, don't believe the warnings. And anyway, Flossie or Mitzie or BooBoo wouldn't wander from the yard and no coyote would dare come right up into the yard for goodness sake.

Guess what. They do.

A friend, who has no pets, heard a funny noise on her patio a few nights ago about 10 pm, looked up from the book she was reading, and there outside her sliding glass patio door stood a nice young coyote looking right back at her. Her 6-foot block wall was no hindrance. She jumped up and he was gone in a flash.

[EFerrari]

22. There's a jogging path that runs the length of GG Park to the west.

One night my dog started acting as if there was something "there" and I got really impatient with her. About two seconds later, a young coyote jumped out of the bushes, trotted past us and seemed to be making his way across the highway to the beach. I'll never second guess my dog again!

[Tansy_Gold]

23. NEVER second guess a dog. NEVER

Couple of weeks ago I was outside with my four one morning shortly after sunrise. The property is fenced, with the front section by the road cordoned off with a second fence to keep the dogs out of the cactus there as well as keep them back a ways from the road. Our road is a popular path for horseback riders heading to open country not far away, and I don't want the dogs going apeshit the way they normally do and scaring someone's horse. They think horses are just over-sized dogs.

Anyway, we're all outside and next thing I know the four of them are tearing towards the front gate, barking like maniacs. I see no horses, no other dogs. Two of mine have no interest in cats, so if they were barking it wasn't a cat. So I went to see what they were going bananas over.

Then I saw the coyote, big and sleek and totally uninterested in mere dogs, trotting down the middle of the street.



TG

[populistdriven]

4. go gators!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

7. How's the gator?

I didn't see its fate mentioned in the article. Did they kill it? Relocate it? Or still have it in a holding cell, with a duct-tape muzzle?

And the so-called "Clearwater" woman is really from Michigan, moved to Florida recently. The only gators we have up here are boots and purses.

:hi:

[imdjh]

11. probably

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. If the dog WAS on a leash, why did she have to "call my dog"?

as the story says?

[imdjh]

12. Good catch.

[EFerrari]

20. She fell down, probably dropped the leash. nt

[rug]

10. Her dog ran away?

[Demit]

16. LOL! Apparently 'man's best friend' has his limits.

[GoCubsGo]

14. Let me get this straight...

This woman has a PhD in Wildlife Biology, she lives in Florida, and she lets her dog run loose where she KNOWS that there lived a gator that is not afraid of humans? Not only does she need to be humiliated, she needs her degree revoked. Heck, one does not even need a wildlife degree to know that dogs are a favorite treat of alligators. I don't care if she did just move there from Michigan.

[BurtWorm]

15. Wow. You Floridians are bunch of hard asses.

I feel bad for the woman.

PS: I'm guessing she learned a lesson, maybe the hard way. But it seems uncharitable to kick her when she's down.

[Demit]

19. I agree. We should be putting her up for an award instead.

The Darwin Awards.

:rofl:

[Edweird]

24. All the bashing we get here has toughened us up.

[enid602]

17. idiot

when I read the OP title, I thought for sure a Bush must be involved.