Posted on 05/16/2006 12:06:05 PM PDT by dukeman
Manatee woman shoots gator as fatal assaults leave state shook up
EAST MANATEE -- An unprecedented surge in fatal alligator attacks has created a stir among Floridians, including a local woman who used a handgun to fend off a gator.
When a 3-foot alligator came onto Candy Frey's lanai Saturday and attacked her golden retriever, the East Manatee woman grabbed her pistol.
Frey and her daughter managed to push the alligator through a dog-door on their lanai, then Frey shot the reptile four times.
"I was running on so much adrenaline," recalled Frey, 48, a former U.S. Marine aviation technician who has lived in the Panther Ridge subdivision for four years. "I just freaked out and shot him -- boom, boom, boom, boom."
Frey said she was thinking about recent gator attacks when she got her gun.
"People are shook up," said Todd Hardwick, a trapper who captured a 9-foot, 4-inch alligator Monday in a residential lake north of Miami. "It's like the citizens of Florida have declared war on alligators. People are really going crazy."
Last week, a 74-year-old woman in Punta Gorda fended off an alligator with a garden hose after it bit her ankle. The alligator scurried off.
In the latest fatal cases, one victim was a jogger whose body was found in a Broward County canal; one was snorkeling in a recreation area near Lake George, in the central part of the state; another was found in a canal about 20 miles north of St. Petersburg. All three were women.
"These are unfortunate, unrelated coincidences," Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Willie Puz said.
Although such a concentration of deaths -- all in a week's time -- had never been recorded in Florida, wildlife officials say there is no pattern or common element between them.
Only 17 deaths had been recorded since 1948 before the most recent fatal attacks, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Government researchers estimate there are between 1 million and 2 million alligators in Florida, but there have only been 351 recorded attacks on humans in the past 58 years.
Those gators that are 6-foot or larger are most likely to attack a person; alligators can reach 14 feet in length and weigh 1,000 pounds.
"We still caution everyone: Pay attention to your surroundings. Pay attention to what's in the water. Alligators are predators and wild animals that should be treated with respect," Puz said.
The three fatal attacks have come during the peak of alligator mating season, when the animals are moving around in search of mates.
In populous south and southwest Florida, lack of rainfall has dried up some shallow wetlands, forcing more alligators to find new homes. And rising spring temperatures make the cold-blooded creatures more active in their search for food.
Alligator encounters with humans also could increase as more and more natural habitat is lost to development. "We are building more and more into wild territories," Puz said.
Frey said Monday she's seen an alligator once before in the 15-acre lake behind her home in Panther Ridge.
A metal fence with bars surrounds her property. She said she thought the fence's height and metal bars would be alligator-proof.
But at about 5:45 p.m. Saturday, Frey was in the front of her house when she heard her two golden retrievers, Sammy and Annie, frantically barking.
"The dogs were going nuts," she said.
Sammy was bleeding from his head when Frey walked onto her lanai.
"I have to take this guy out," Frey recalled thinking. "You can't wait to see how long it's going to sit there."
She loaded a 10-round magazine into her pistol and marched back outside. Frey had tried flipping the gator away with a shovel but the reptile kept lunging at her.
Gripping the gun with two hands, Frey squeezed the trigger four times. The shots hit their mark -- two in the alligator's neck and two in its shoulder.
The gator barely bled, she said.
A neighbor called 911 and a Manatee County sheriff's deputy responded to Frey's home in 8100 block of Panther Ridge Trail.
The state sent a wildlife officer to investigate.
Frey said the gunshot wounds appeared to self-heal and the wildlife officer put the gator back in the lake.
The officer questioned Frey about the shooting.
Frey thought she was going to jail, but ended up with a warning citation for hunting without a permit.
Gators are more aggressive during mating season and it's been very dry in Florida (winter and spring are the dry seasons here), so they're more likely to move about in search of water. They sometimes end up here and there in a swimming pool, but that is not a common occurrence. As for their ability to access property, I once saw a photo of a garor scaling a chain link fence in an effort, I believe, to reach somebody's yappy little dog on the other side.
"I don't know the caliber. Would a 10-round clip most likely be a .22?"
During the term of the infamous Brady law (1994-2004), new semi autos were limited to 10 rounds so it could be anything from a 22 to a 45.
The three S's apply here.
Shoot, Shovel and Shutup.
I do believe there's a few details missing here. A large gator will not fit through a dog door (and who in their right mind would try it?), and I doubt could be flipped with a shovel. Then there's the fact that it was returned to the lake; large gators are moved to uninhabited areas when caught.
Conclusion: a small gator attacked her dog (but that fact would kind of ruin the story).
"The three S's apply here.
Shoot, Shovel and Shutup."
Exactly.
A permit is in the pompano family, and is considered an important game fish here. In any case, a lot of people come to Florida and hire a guide, just to get a "permit." :-)
"The heck with the alligators; I'm still trying to imagine the manatee woman."
Helen Thomas with a fin.
This a pretty clear cut case of discrimination.
The woman gets charged with hunting without a permit.
The gator, who also seems to have been hunting without a permit, doesn't get charged.
Betcha the gator was male.
"Betcha the gator was male."
It's just a "good-old-boy" network down there.
You don't know whay a pucker factor is until you run over a gator on a slalom water ski. Don't fall is right!
"My .45 has a ten-round magazine"
Must be a helluva pistol. A clip is detachable, a magazine holds the cartridges internally.
Don't live on a lake if you don't like Gators, lady.
I disagree. I'm a second-generation native, and there is plenty of fresh water swimming that goes on here, especially in cleared, populated beach areas and springs.
I wouldn't recommend swimming at dawn or dusk or in any area that was wild or heavily vegetated.
You beat me by 10 posts. Unloading a 4 shots on a 3 foot gator seems a little overkill. Maybe she can frame her citation.
As you will recall, a Manatee woman is usually referred to as a Mermaid.
WTF?!
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