Re: This guy REALLY wanted to go fishing
I photograph gators frequently. Most of ours are in the 5 - 7 foot range, but I see a fair amount that are smaller and some that are much larger.
Most of the medium sized gators will maintain a distance that they consider to be safe, but the little ones are quite curious and will get pretty close to my boat. That actually surprised me when I first started "shooting" them - I guess I expected them to have more of a flight instinct, because they are small and less able to defend themselves.
The big gators seem to be a mixed bag. I've seen a few that will submerge and swim away very quickly and some that will get close to the boat. Obviously, the closer I can get to them, the better my shots can be, but I tend to be careful of them. My boat is 18' and has higher freeboard than a 14' tinny, but I still don't want to tempt those big ole boys!
What would cause concern for me in the situation that this guy faced, is that the gators were hungry and fighting over food. Another aspect of this, is that gators, particularly good sized males, don't like to be near one another. They are very territorial and being forced together for any reason, tends to make them very cranky. Combine that fact with hunger and you have some very dangerous animals.
Its hard to say exactly what this guy did. If he only realized his predicament once he got into the group, moving forward was probably as good a choice as any. That said, I find it hard to believe that they were sitting on the bottom and suddenly appeared all around him.
The more likely scenario seems to be that he just ventured into the group, assuming that nothing would happen. As you can see in the video, the natural instinct of a gator is to move away from a moving boat, but my fear would be a couple of generally ticked off gators bumping into one another trying to move out of the way, only to tip the boat over. Had that guy ended up in the water with those "bad boys," I don't think he would have lasted more than a few minutes!
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