Yesterday's editorial in the Fort Myers News Press on alligators was pretty lame and uninspiring. One of those I-don't-know-what-we-should-do-let's-reassess kind of things.
Today's column by Sam Cook is much better:
Sanibel officials say they will reconsider policies on reptiles.
They better do more than rethink them. They better cull the large predators from Sanibel’s estimated 300 gators before it happens again.
Cut the alligator spin too.
Every time an alligator attacks, tree-huggers try to blame others for feeding them.
Their pat reply: “People were feeding them, so they lost their fear of humans.”
Sure, this happens.
Yet it’s too easy to make humans the scapegoat.
It’s also a cop-out.
Why would an alligator — a natural-born killer — nearly 12 feet long and weighing 457 pounds have anything to fear from a 5-foot-7, 145-pound woman?
Who was the defenseless animal: Janie Melsek or the gator?
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Alligators threaten Sanibel way of life
Janie Melsek’s death brings more than horror and sadness.
It questions a community’s way of life.
Rodney Melsek, her brother, is disbelieving.
Charlie Green, her lifelong friend, is outraged.
Joy Williams, her daughter, is motherless.
They struggle to make sense of the senseless death of a loved one — Sanibel Island landscaper Melsek, 54, who died Friday, two days after she was mauled on the job by an 11-foot-9-inch alligator.
Brother, friend and daughter react in different ways — but all have one question:
Why do leaders and environmentalists of Sanibel Island think they have to live in Jurassic Park?
“I’m absolutely horrified at the way she passed,” says Melsek, 58. “This isn’t normal. I still don’t believe it. Who gets eaten by an animal? She wasn’t in the wilds of Montana. This happened in a civilized place.”
After alligators killed two people in three years and attacked a third person, Sanibel’s serenity is in question.
“That’s what happens when you mix wildlife and human beings and no one takes responsibility,” says Green, 57, Lee County’s clerk of court. “What is a 12-foot alligator doing living on Sanibel? I’m not for slaughtering wildlife but you can’t have that many alligators running around with no food.”
The state kills nuisance gators more than 4 feet long.
Sanibel kills nuisance gators more than 8 feet.
“They’re protecting prehistoric animals over people,” says Williams, 29, between sobs. “It won’t bring back my mom, but I certainly hope a great tragedy will motivate people to make a change. Her death should not be in vain.”
Melsek wonders how to explain the unexplainable.
“It’s not just a horrific thing now,” he says. “Ten years from now, people will ask me how my sister died.
“I’ll have to tell them she was killed by a wild animal. I can’t imagine what she went through. I don’t want to imagine what she went through.”
Sanibel officials say they will reconsider policies on reptiles.
They better do more than rethink them. They better cull the large predators from Sanibel’s estimated 300 gators before it happens again.
Cut the alligator spin too.
Every time an alligator attacks, tree-huggers try to blame others for feeding them.
Their pat reply: “People were feeding them, so they lost their fear of humans.”
Sure, this happens.
Yet it’s too easy to make humans the scapegoat.
It’s also a cop-out.
Why would an alligator — a natural-born killer — nearly 12 feet long and weighing 457 pounds have anything to fear from a 5-foot-7, 145-pound woman?
Who was the defenseless animal: Janie Melsek or the gator?
The contents of the alligator’s stomach also debunks the human handout theory.
A necropsy found duck feathers and vegetation in the reptile’s stomach.
That’s all. No chicken bones or marshmallows.
Posted by floridacracker at July 25, 2004 11:20 AM