Snap decision: 74-year-old Florida man wrests puppy from jaws of alligator
With a breath of some much-needed good news, The Register is obliged to point out that it's nice to see Florida Man* upending the stereotype of "world's worst superhero" by actually doing something heroic. Word emerged over the weekend via CNN that an elderly man was forced to prise his three-month-old Cavalier King Charles …
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Monday 23rd November 2020 15:30 GMT Cederic
Re: Where's mum?
That was my immediate thought when the creatures eventually emerged from the water.
Although the little one may be independent and migrated away from home by that age, and even the big ones would struggle with a cigar smoking baby boomer.
I do like alligators. Only been within 15 feet of one in the wild on land, about about 10 feet from one that was in the water while I was on a walkway (so not easily reached by it), but they're very relaxed animals unless they think you're food.
That said, I did make sure not to get close to the 8 inch long babies I saw.
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Monday 23rd November 2020 17:41 GMT Version 1.0
Re: Where's mum?
Looks like a mid-day incident, an adult gator would not be very interested. I used to live in remote Florida and swim in a lake that had gators, I just wouldn't do it late in the afternoon or at night - gators are riskier in areas where idiots feed them - it's way less of a problem in the wild.
I canoed on the Hillsborough river for years and occasionally accidentally paddled over an adult gator that was just snoozing in the reeds - they just run off every time. Small gators are not a big deal - sure I wouldn't mess with one but if that had happened to me then I'd have done the same thing, it wasn't a big risk.
A friend of mine way driving a four wheeler Jeep in the Everglades and ran over an adult gator on the track, he turned around to go back and met the gator coming back up the track - he's real good at reversing!
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Monday 23rd November 2020 15:19 GMT Claverhouse
The Joys of Democracy
you should know the phenomenon of Florida Man may have arisen because it has really good public records laws.
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No doubt. However this has always seemed to me a dubious argument for Americans to make:
"There are not more demented/angry/bungling boobs in Florida: all our states have the same proportion of nutcases, we just cover it up better."
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Monday 23rd November 2020 22:59 GMT jake
Re: The Joys of Democracy
Florida is home to all the New York and New Jersey rejects. Kind of ups the anti somewhat.
It's also home to people who think perpetually muggy is "good weather" ... people actually move there on purpose for this! Waterlogged brains are not prone to good decision making.
And of course all the alcohol soaked students, there for the perpetual spring break. Tends to drop the IQ well below the national average.
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Monday 23rd November 2020 18:29 GMT Zarno
I don't mind alligator.
Gator tail tastes like the love child of a chicken and a fish.
Really good fried popcorn style, washed down with a cold beer on a floating restaurant.
Glad the pup and owner got through relatively safe!
Icon because that gator would be on the bbq or in the fryer, with need of a few to wash it down...
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Tuesday 24th November 2020 23:53 GMT bill 27
Re: What did the dude expect, walking his pup close to the water?
And in Alaska we call people walking small animals trolling for eagles.
As an aside, when I read about this elsewhere they quoted the guy as saying that from here on out the pup would be on a leash. I thought, like you'll ever get that dog near water again. I once had a Black Lab that would run in panic when suddenly faced with an open body of water.
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Wednesday 25th November 2020 01:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What did the dude expect, walking his pup close to the water?
And in Britain ... errr ... errr ...
OK the seagulls can be a bit of a pest, oh and I saw a crow batter a starling out of the sky and munch on it today, which nearly made me swallow my monocle.
It's all about perspective. If you were that starling then no amount of Florida swamp tomfoolery would convince you that Australia is safe for human consumption.
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Monday 23rd November 2020 23:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
I also read an article elsewhere today covering concern being raised about an increaing nunber of "animal resued" videos on YouTube where it appears animails are deliberately left to caught by predators like snames etc so that they can be "rescued" with the "rescue" captured on video and uploaded to YouTube with the "rescuers" cashing in on the adverising kick-backs from YouTube. Hmmm ....
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Tuesday 24th November 2020 12:54 GMT Wade Burchette
Re: Australia has crocodiles over 100k of them
Florida has crocodiles too, although less of them. One of the key differences between an alligator and a crocodile is that alligators are more tolerant of cold. In fact, alligators can even hibernate if it gets cold enough. One particular cold month in southern North Carolina, the northern extent of the alligator's year-round range, the lakes and ponds froze over. The alligators in the area were hibernating in the water with just the snout above the frozen water. It was quite interesting, seeing pictures of a snout just above iced over water. Crocodiles would die in that cold weather.
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Tuesday 24th November 2020 10:26 GMT jake
Re: There goes another puppy
Off topic, but I'll bite ...
Are you volunteering to keep them housed, fed, watered and vetted? I thought not.
I do my part by encouraging spaying and neutering. It's not my fault that the idiots don't want to hear it. "It's just one litter! Puppies from Fluffy will be so cute!" is the common refrain, as they allow little Fluffy to breed with any mongrel that comes sniffing around. Fluffy's owner is usually the same moron who gets all sad about the amount of euthanasias per year ... The hypocrisy and ignorance among this set is dreadful.
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Tuesday 24th November 2020 10:35 GMT _LC_
Re: There goes another puppy
That's the whole point. It is more difficult to save those puppies from human beings than it is prying them out of the fangs of an alligator. Nice story, but there should be stories about the puppies getting gassed, with pictures. Maybe every month, at the least. But ... that doesn't sell. Ergo, screw the puppies!
It's called hypocrisy.
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Tuesday 24th November 2020 10:37 GMT Fruit and Nutcase
FOI?
The British government is operating a secretive internal unit to block requests for information by the public under transparency laws, it has been revealed.
The FOI Clearing House, an "Orwellian" operation within Michael Gove's Cabinet Office, shares personal information about journalists and researchers and has been accused of "blacklisting" people making freedom of information requests.
Freedom of information requests are supposed to be "applicant blind", meaning they do not discriminate against the person filing them – but staff at the unit have been caught out singling out individual researchers and journalists.
In open internal email seen by the website, they wrote: “Just flagging that X is a journalist” and “once the response is confirmed, I’ll just need [redacted] to sign off on this before it goes out, since X is a reporter for openDemocracy”.
Quelle surprise