Gator Tale

Man, I should have saved my alligator photo for this blog post. Oh well. Just recently, another instance of man vs. nature (or in this case woman vs. nature) reared its ugly head here in Florida. A landscaper pulling weeds out of decorative pond in Sanibel was bitten on the hand by a six-foot alligator. The gator did a pretty good number on her hand. Though shaken, the landscaper will be OK. The gator, on the other hand, didn't fare so well with the subsequent meeting it had with Fish and Wildlife.

This news piece is an interesting story (click here to go to OrnamentalOutlook.com to read it) and a painful lesson learned for the landscaper. Shortly after we posted this news item to our website a few days ago, the comments started rolling in from our subscribers. About a dozen so far have come in (BTW--this is much above the average we receive for other articles). Reading through the feedback, I was pleased to see such interactivity from our readers. I also am a little surprised to see how many comments were in favor of the alligator and blaming the victim for invading the reptile's territory.

To me, this is simply a case of wrong place, wrong time. The landscaper probably did know better. People who live here and work here-- especially outdoors -- are aware of the natural risk factors out there. A previous blog post of mine touched on this very subject matter. The Orlando Sentinel had a front-page article earlier this week about the hazards Floridians live with every day.

Plain and simple: Landscaping (especially in Florida) is not an easy job, but somebody's got to do it!