By Aaron Miller-
A man from Florida was attacked by a seven-foot-alligator while walking around a motel on Tuesday after mistaking it for a dog.
At approximately 12:45 a.m., the 49-year-old victim was walking through the front garden of a Sarasota County motel when he noticed something in the bushes, WTVT reported.
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Since the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) started tracking human-alligator incidents in 1948, there have been 442 unprovoked bites with 26 resulting in fatalities. The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said the man, who has not been publicly identified, was a guest at the motel.
During his midnight stroll, the man allegedly saw the alligator’s silhouette running through the bushes but assumed it was a dog with a long leash, which is why he did not move out of the way, according to WFTS-TV.
The wild animal then approached the man, biting him on the leg and pulling on his muscle tissue, police told WFTS-TV. Luckily, a Sarasota County deputy was nearby the attack for a separate call when he heard the man’s screams, WTVT reported. The deputy contacted EMS and the man was taken to a nearby hospital but has since been released.
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According to WFTS-TV, a sergeant was able to capture the alligator which was removed from the scene by an alligator trapper. The FWC said the gator is being transferred to a nearby farm that processes alligators for hide and meat.
The reptile was removed from the scene and was captured by an alligator trapper. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said it was transferred to a nearby farm, an alligator processor.
The state of Florida has a population of 1.3 million alligators, according to FWC. There have been 442 unprovoked bites, which resulted in 26 fatalities since 1848, when the FWC started keeping records.
Only last week, the body of a man who had been retrieving Frisbees from a Florida public park’s lake that serves as habitat for alligators was found with its arm torn off on Tuesday, the authorities said. It was the state’s first fatal alligator attack since 2019.
Police at the time said that the victim, identified as Sean Thomas McGuinness, had entered the lake during night time hours, as his body did not appear to have been in the lake for a long period when a person walking their dog discovered it along the shoreline at about 8 a.m. Tuesday.
McGuinness was a “transient” person who made a living by selling the Frisbees to people who played disc golf at a course that runs parallel to the lake, and “he died as a result of an alligator attack,” Paul Cozzie, director of Parks and Conservation Resources in Pinellas County, said in a telephone interview.
“It appears that he went in before the park opened — unfortunately not a good time to be in any lake, but especially during alligator mating season,” Mr. Cozzie said, calling that decision “a mistake that appears to have cost him his life.”
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