I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: we get a lot of animals out back. And if you follow my twitpics, you’ll see that I post a picture of some variety of backyard beast whenever there is one. Which is all the time. Anyway.
Today my six year old called me out onto the screen porch.
“Mom, a frog!”
Sure enough behind a box of blocks was a good sized frog, panicked and leaping about. We captured him gently and released him into the yard. But before he leaped away, I was lucky enough to catch a quick shot. I adore even the little beasts. Just look at him. Isn’t he cute?
And then, after hearding my stampede of boys indoors for dinner, the backyard quieted. The sun got lower, the air cooled, the water was still – it was a beautiful night. They finished dinner and started in on their homework. With my six year old working on his writing, I happened to glance up. And that’s when I saw this beast hauling himself onto the grassy median between our two back ponds. He too happens to be in the reptile family. But he certainly upstaged his distant cousin above.
I snuck outside and caught this picture before he darted back into the water. And please give some credit to my zoom for doing a decent job here because I swear he is only about 3-4 ft. long. Not big enough to make a run at us (but I think our cat might want to keep her title as an “indoor” kitty for now). But as my friends have asked me – where is it’s mother then? I told you all I need to stay on my toes out there.
And I promise. If he decides to make this grass bank his new home, we’ll call the gator hot-line.
Until then, wow. Florida. This place continues to amaze me.
It’s April Fools Day everyday around here. And that’s usually the case for anyone with a home positioned near bodies of fresh water in Florida. We see… things… in the water. All the time. Usually its just something like this.
And at first you think
“Oh crap. A gator. How big is it? Do we need to call the Gator hotline?”
Because yes there is such a thing. But then you realize, no. It’s just driftwood. Yep. Just another piece of wood floating by that sure does a good job camouflaging itself as as a gator. Ha ha. Very funny. The joke is on us. Again.
But you always have to check. You have to keep the kids and the small pets back. Just in case. Because it could always be this. And this isn’t driftwood.
Full disclosure: this wasn’t taken in my backyard, it was taken at the Florida Aquarium. Not that I haven’t seen gators in the ponds out back. Or ambling through my yard. They are just really hard to sneak up on and are more often than not (thankfully) more scared of us. They usually disappear very quickly before I could ever get this close.
(Unless its a very big one and it wants me this close but then I don’t think I’d have time to grab my camera anyway.)
They just want to go about their business, finding and becoming their inner driftwood, submerging themselves silently if we come anywhere near.
Don’t laugh at me. But I am obsessing about rain right now. It really needs to rain. I am kind of freaking out about it.
Do you see how low our back pond is? Look at that. In my almost four years in this house, I’ve never seen it this low.
This is kind of boring you isn’t it? Well, its big news for me.
Let me back up a bit.
While I am home everyday, putzing around the house and writing posts, I don’t see all that much action. Unless you count my 2 yo pooping on the floor 3 feet away from his potty “action”. But I don’t really call that action. I call that a pain in the ass. But I digress.
So while real people in real offices wearing real business suits watch the exciting world go by from where they busily tackle the world’s problems, I am tucked away here in suburbia. The trash truck comes by. The mail is dropped off. Maybe an occasional school bus. But other than that, the sun shines down, driveways await their commuting residents, the flowers wave in the breeze and nothing seems to really happen around here.
But I actually think a lot happens outside my “office” window. My backyard is a virtual daily drama. I’ve mentioned all the animals before. Currently, there are at least three alligators moving between our ponds. We have a rabbit who appears first thing in the morning and late in the evening to snack on our grass. All varieties of herons, hawks and other birds swoop in to enjoy what our ponds offer. Deer come to graze and sip from our receding ponds midday. Lizards, snakes and turtles hustle about. There are actual bass in those ponds and the alligators will chase your lure down for them. I’ve seen bobcat and wild boar on multiple occasions. At night, bats and owls flit about, the bushes rustle, we hear calls in the night and unknown shadows wander by (most likely armadillo). I have even awoken to hear someone trying to get into our back porch only to discover a raccoon, up on his haunches, working the door latch with all his might. We joke we need to charge admission to our backyard. Guests are guaranteed to see something interesting whenever they visit.
So my office is pretty exciting. At least I think so. I love to observe the comings and goings of every beastie, the progress of each growing plant and now the level of the ponds.
I hate droughts. And I could tell you the story about the drought I experienced in Africa that meant such severe water restrictions, our dormitories were only allowed two showers per week for 10 minutes stretches with 3 people per shower nozzle. I could go on about that. But it might sound a bit like my father telling the story about how he walked to school everyday in the snow, uphill both ways – so I’ll spare you. I just know the value of water. That’s all.
And I also know that the state of Florida needs some. Badly. We haven’t had any significant rain at all since that heart-stopping tornado awhile back. Not cool.
Here is a video of an alligator who was trying to get himself comfortable in one of the back ponds last week (last week there was still some water in that pond). My mother in law and I happened to watch this alligator crawl through my backyard (it was only about 3 feet long, not big – or dangerous – by any means) and then lumber down to the water’s mud’s edge. I grabbed my camera and this is what I caught.
Well, it’s happened again. There was another highly publicized alligator attack here in Florida. A teen swimming in a Melbourne canal was grabbed by an alligator. He survived but lost his arm. He did, however, get a spot on the Today Show this morning discussing his attack. I am very happy to hear that he survived. And while he made some very good points about alligator over-population in Florida, he obviously did not have a perfect understanding of the potential harm these animals can bring or else he might have both arms today. But, once again, the country watched his report, wide eyed, and the notion of savage, blood thirsty gators hunting down Florida residents lives on.
I have lived in Florida for 3 years now. And as you might remember, I lived in Africa for a good portion of my life growing up. If there was one lesson I learned in Africa about animals, it was to remain humble about wildlife. We are only another animal in the grand scheme of it all. While we, as humans, have the capacity to remain separated and safe from animal attacks, if we are not well educated or respectful of the animals living in our environment, we can easily slip into our spot on the food chain and potentially be harmed. I have carried that lesson with me here. And Florida has certainly impressed me with its vast amount of wild life, just look in my own backyard. Even as I was writing this post and took a break to feed my kids lunch, I happened to see a gator swim across our back pond. This alligator is about 4 feet long and seems to have established this pond as its territory. Alligators are a very real part of our lives here and, it seems crazy to admit, seeing one is not quite the novel sight it used to be.
However, attacks can happen and so we hear of another on the news today. But, honestly, I’m just annoyed. These stories and fanciful national headlines very rarely give the viewer any sense of perspective. There is no information offered about the enormous mistreatment of alligators and our struggles to co-exist with an animal that has been going about its business in this state for hundreds of years. With the gory gator stories and all the misinformation out there, the masses just assume they want to eat us and that’s that. Even the victim had to make the comment “They’re out for blood.” Are you kidding me?
Do you know why alligators usually attack us? They aren’t afraid of us. And why would an alligator go against its natural instincts and move towards us, rather than away? Because unfortunately, it’s been fed by humans. It happens all the time. Even down the road, there was a group of baby alligators that would swim up to a fence along the sidewalk when humans walked by. That’s insane. No, they weren’t born smacking their baby gator jaws, hungry for people blood. They wanted the scraps people threw to them. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen those alligators for some time now so, obviously, a call was made to the local “Alligator Hotline” (yup, that’s for real) and they were removed – and destroyed.
Do you want another reason why an alligator would attack us? Human stupidity. If we swim into its territory (um, teen from Melbourne, FL – this is you, buddy) or dangle our toes in a fresh water pond while we fish or let our dogs play in the water while we stand by – I’m sorry, you’re asking for it. Bottom line. Alligators do hunt by nature and will come after a mammal proportionate to its size if its right in front of its nose.
I have 4 separate bodies of water out back and no fence (they’re bloody expensive and don’t do that much to deter gators, but maybe someday). As you know, I also have two sons. And, as I’ve mentioned, we certainly have gators in that water out back. But have we had a scare with an alligator? Nope. Why not? My children are taught to be as afraid of any local fresh body of water as they are of the road. They don’t go near it. As a family, we are respectful of the alligators territory. If we do see a gator, we watch inside the perpetually locked back porch with our binoculars and talk about it. If my husband or I happen to walk out on the grass to get a better look from afar, the alligator immediately disappears, maybe emerging on the far end as it crawls out and into an even further pond. I promise you, alligators don’t want to be around us.
And this brings up the final unfortunate issue. Teen from Melbourne, FL., you’re right. There are too many of us and too many of them. And while Alligators don’t want to be around us, they are. Potentially, there may be more than one alligator in every fresh body of water in Florida. And, as we all move down here, set up shop, slap on our flip flops and sun glasses and park our booties under these lovely palm trees, the alligators are getting encroached upon. And while I don’t see the influx of humans changing anytime soon, unfortunately, the gator population needs to be controlled. This is a serious issue in any animal park or reserve where one species doesn’t have any natural predators – there are too many and it affects the natural balance of an eco-system. So while I am not a big hunting fan, I do support any humane destruction or relocation programs for alligators. It sucks for the gators, but we are really not responsible enough to live this close to this many of them for much longer.
Now before I start getting any comments about what a bad mom I am for raising my kids so close to alligators (um, did you read this post?), you should be aware of a few facts. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, between the years of 1948 and 2004, there have only been 15 reported fatal alligator attacks. That’s nothing when you consider how many of them there really are around here. In fact, the FWC receives 15,000 calls about nuisance alligators annually and then removes about 5,000 of the gators they are called about. These beasts certainly show up everywhere: in front door atriums, under cars, in a ditch, anywhere. But to have only 15 fatalities occur in 56 years? They really don’t deserve the man-eater rap they have been assigned. Like I said, they don’t like us and would be quite happy to just be left alone.
So that’s my public service announcement about Florida Alligators. I hope you’ve learned something. And I promise you that if my gators start getting frisky or deciding that they want to make my backyard their favorite sunning spot, I’ll be calling the alligator hotline asap. Maybe you’re wondering what they do with the removed alligators that are destroyed? Well, they sell it to make alligator meat OF COURSE. Do you think I’m kidding? A neighbor a few doors down had a nuisance gator removed… and guess what was for dinner? I kid you not. Gator BBQ. Gotta love Florida.
Do you see how low our back pond is? Look at that. In my almost four years in this house, I’ve never seen it this low.
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