My brother has a rather unusual and interesting job. He's a licensed trapper for nuisance alligators. The other day he helped trap two. One was 8 ft. long, discovered in a sewer drain by city workers. The other was a 10 ft. long gator in a canal. If you go
here you can see the news report and video. Be sure to watch the second video, it's the coolest! He's the guy sitting on the gator's back at the end.
You may notice the mouth is taped shut. Guess who taped it? He doesn't kill the gators unless they have killed a person - this one is headed for a gator farm in Lake Placid. He used a boom box playing baby gator sounds to attract the gator in question, then uses a loop to catch it, or sometimes a gaffe gun of some sort. Once he wrestles the madly fighting alligator to shore (they roll over and over, once breaking his finger in the process!), he has to sit on its back and tape its mouth shut. Then he can load it on the truck.
It's not that surprising that he would end up doing something like this. His first camping trip was when he was one month old, as you can see above. My sister and I are 9 and 12 in the picture. We hiked, swam, fished, canoed and camped and he was always included. I remember once my step-dad (his dad) asked us if we wanted to see an alligator when we were near a swamp or pond, probably in the Everglades. We said sure, so he began making soft "unh, unh, unh" sounds that he said were the sounds baby alligators make when they are in distress. Then he got a wicked little gleam in his eye and said to my mom, "Hand me the baby! If I dangle his tender little toes in the water, the gators will come right over!" She squealed and held my brother tighter and my step-dad grinned from ear to ear.
His dad taught him everything he needed to know to be an outdoorsman, and he always has been comfortable in the great outdoors. He hunts, both with gun and bow, fishes (and cooks an incredibly delicious fish dinner with his fresh fish, even though he doesn't eat fish himself), canoes, hikes, and camps.
And now he's added gator trapping to his repertoire! Kinda cool, don't ya think?
He wants people to know that what makes an alligator a nuisance is feeding them! I have been swimming, fishing and canoeing with gators, but when they are wild they mostly leave people alone. We had a gator in the pond near us that people wouldn't stop feeding - my son used to go stand on the bank and when the gator headed his way, he'd bean it between the eyes with a rock. That way it didn't know whether it was going to receive food or pain. It's possible he saved a few neighborhood kids that way! If you are concerned about alligators hurting people, or even if you are concerned about the gators themselves, the best thing you can do for them is leave them alone. People are killed by gators all the time, so you could save lives by not feeding them. Not to mention that the gator will have to be destroyed if it eats someone!Luckily if someone has a problem, they can just give my brother a call!
I promised I would show some pictures to go with the Things I've Done tag, so here they are. Above is my Grandpa with the small plane he flew for a while. I loved going up in it!
In 1976, the Bicentennial, my family went to Washington, D.C. Back then you could tour inside the White House, which we did - we toured everything! Below is the Lincoln Memorial.
This is the overnight train, in our case from Florida to Indiana. I am in front. I look scared, but I had a blast.
This isn't the elephant I rode, but it is at Lion Country Safari, passing in front of our car. You drive around through a nature preserve while all these wild animals run free. It's amazing. At the end, there is a park, where you can ride elephants, see baby wild animals, and all sorts of things.
Here's my little brother getting "patted" by Pluto at one of our many Disney trips.
When I was 8 or 9, my step-dad took us out to a hunting cabin he and some friends had deep in the Everglades. Mom loved to drive the swamp buggy. One time she raced my step-dad; he was driving the Land Rover we'd come in. We were so far away from anything, and we had a wonderful time. I'm in the yellow shirt.
We took an amazing trip when I was 14, camping for weeks and hiking through the West. Here is Old Faithful.
