Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 29, Number 2;   February, 2002

Real Florida: Leave the big boys alone

by Jeff Klinkenberg

The third-largest alligator ever documented was killed by a trapper in Polk County recently. But what does that do to the gene pool?

I've seen hundreds of alligators in my half century in Florida. But never a gator so large. I imagined how my heart would pound if such a monster were to venture near my fragile canoe.

A true leviathan, the alligator measured 13 feet, 11 1/4 inches, making it the third largest ever documented.

"It was just about 101 percent alligator, about as perfect as you get," said Fagan, who caught the whopper at a Polk County ranch in September.

It was the phrase "about as perfect at as you can get" that gnawed at me.

The best place for a "perfect" alligator is in the water -- alive.

I don't mean to criticize Fagan. He is in the trapping business to make money, and if I were in his shoes, I might have killed the alligator too.

After all, I'm no New Age Guy. I have been known to eat hamburger. I have even sampled alligator meat, a product Fagan supplies to restaurants. I consider myself a conservationist. I also know that alligators that have lost their fear of humans, usually because they have been stupidly fed by Homo sapiens and need to be removed from civilization. That's another part of Fagan's state-licensed job, thank goodness. But Fagan's alligator was living in a pond, on an isolated ranch, bothering nobody.

Of course, alligator attacks anywhere, anyplace, any time, are extremely rare. Never in my life -- a life filled with canoeing, wading and swimming among alligators -- have I been menaced. And I guess that is probably true of most Floridians. Whenever I see a really big alligator, say a 10-footer, I am thrilled. The world is an exciting place.

When a .22-caliber slug ended the life of the 800-pound alligator in Polk County, Florida, at that instant, became a less exciting place.

To keep Florida wild, we need to treasure our largest animals, from bears to panthers to rattlesnakes. And big alligators, too. Especially big alligators.

They're the rarest of the rare. Few ever mature to gargantuan size. Nature is against it. Just think of what has to happen for any alligator to survive. A heavy rain will flood out an alligator nest. Raccoons eat alligator eggs. Alligator hatchlings are consumed by great blue herons, large-mouth bass and snapping turtles. Small alligators are killed by larger ones. Some die of disease. Some perish crossing roads. Sexually mature alligators -- the bull males competing for mates -- will fight to the death.

Only the strongest and wariest survive. And very, very few of the survivors possess the genes to grow longer than 10 or 11 feet. Even those of us who have spent much of our lives outdoors have never seen a certifiable 12-foot alligator.

A 12-footer is an astonishingly rare animal. A 13-or 14-footer is close to being a miracle. If such a beast leaves us alone -- does not menace us or our pets -- why harm it?

What I'm proposing isn't rocket science. Ask a cattle rancher. When a rancher is lucky enough to develop a spectacular bull, he doesn't send it to the slaughterhouse. He breeds it so he can have other spectacular bulls. The very fastest race horses, after retirement, aren't sent to the glue factory. They're rented out for stud. If I grow a wonderful crop of tomatoes this fall, if I'm smart I'll will save seeds for next spring.

If an alligator trapper wants to continue harvesting quality alligators, he leaves the big boys alone. If we want smaller alligators, by all means let's kill the very largest ones and remove their genes from the pool.

I don't mean to sound self righteous. I grew up in Florida at a time when catching the biggest fish, and bragging about it, was my manly goal. I was more likely to read Field and Stream under the covers than Playboy. On Saturdays I'd pedal my bike to the House of Snoike tackle store in North Miami to soak up the fish talk and see if I could learn something. When I caught a good fish, I bragged about it and got my Mom to grab the old Brownie and snap a couple of photos just in case I needed proof.

When my dad got home from work early, sometimes we'd visit Pier 5 on the downtown waterfront to meet the returning fishing boats. Captains hung the day's catch, usually dead barracudas and tarpon, from scaffolds. The dead fish attracted tourists who might hire the captain the next day. Since barracuda and tarpon lack food value, they were discarded into the bay after serving their purpose. I never saw anything wrong with it. But I was only a kid.

On my desk I have a photograph of a youthful, bearded fellow posing with a very large snook, a spectacular game fish. Caught in Miami's Biscayne Bay, it weighed 28 pounds, a trophy by any standards. After the handshakes and photographs, the angler -- yours truly -- got out his fillet knife.

When I gutted the snook, pounds of roe spilled out -- future snook.

My family ate snook fillets for about a week. Snook fillets taste very good. But even now that photograph haunts me.

Not every snook grows up to be 28 pounds. Only the strongest, wariest, luckiest snook do, the ones with the best genes.

If I had to do it over again, I would let the big snook go.

Same with the Loch Ness Monster. I'd put him back too.

If I ever see a 14-foot alligator, I'll dam sure keep it to myself. I want to keep Florida wild.