Florida Message Has Bite: Please Don’t Feed the Gators

MIAMI —  Florida hopes a new publicity campaign will put some teeth into a long-standing message to tourists and residents alike--don’t feed the alligators.

With 14 million people and a million alligators, Florida is logging more and more complaints about gators that crawl into neighborhood canals and lakes, backyards and occasionally swimming pools, a state spokesman says.

Florida’s information campaign, due to begin within two months, aims to teach people that alligators are a part of the landscape in the Sunshine State, said Henry Cabbage, spokesman for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission.

“Gators belong in Florida,” he said. “The idea is to teach people how to peacefully coexist with alligators.”

Under the slogan “Welcome to Our State. You Might See Some Alligators Here,” a campaign of posters, brochures and public service announcements will start in Florida and expand to eight other Southern states where alligators live and breed.

Florida records about 13,000 nuisance calls and averages 18 attacks on humans annually, Cabbage said. There have been 220 documented alligator attacks, six fatal, since 1948.

Many of the people who call to complain about pesky alligators do not understand that the creatures are simply doing what alligators do, he said.

“Usually an alligator wouldn’t be a problem if people would learn to treat them like a wild animal. Don’t feed them, don’t try to pet them and don’t get close to them.”

Cabbage recalled the story of a Florida zookeeper who stopped a tourist who was lifting a little boy over a fence so he could set the child down on a 12-foot alligator and take a picture.

Alligators were declared an endangered species in 1966 but were removed from threatened lists in the mid-1980s after Florida populations were successfully regenerated.