Gator Cop

Spate Of Alligator Attacks Keeps Trapper Kevin Garvey Busy

(Christian Science Monitor)  For a brief moment, as he struggled to control a rope with a 10-foot alligator thrashing on the end of it beside a suburban canal, Kevin Garvey had to ask himself who was catching whom. The reptile's violent fight had caused the rope to tangle around its body, putting Garvey just a few feet from its flailing tail and snapping jaws.

As one of only 32 licensed alligator trappers in Florida — and the only one here in heavily populated Broward County — he is well-versed in how to handle such situations. But his experience is tempered by the knowledge that man versus alligator is never an even matchup. The last time he dealt with one this big, it had just killed a woman.

"It's pure adrenaline pumping through you," says Garvey. "This alligator starts wrapping himself up in the rope and I'm running out of rope to hold on to. He's bringing himself closer and closer to me. I have to use my judgment to get him to stop rolling, because otherwise I'm in his target zone."

It all ended safely for the trapper, but not so happily for his prey, who concluded the hour-long bout trussed up on the back of a truck bound for a plant that processes the meat and skin for sale.

Garvey has captured 1,000 or so "nuisance" alligators during his 11-year career, removing them from canals, ponds, yards, and swimming pools, hooking them off roads and golf courses. He even extracted one from a balcony in an apartment building after it wandered into an elevator and got whisked up to the third floor. Every capture is sanctioned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC).

Despite all the personal reminders he has had of their formidable strength, one species unnerves Garvey more than alligators: man.

"From my standpoint, it's really not that hard a job dealing with alligators," he says, standing beside a canal in Sunrise, 30 miles north of Miami, where a resident has reported being stalked while trimming trees in his yard. "The hardest part of this job is actually dealing with the public — educating them, calming them down, getting them to understand these animals."

With three women killed in the space of six days earlier this month, death by alligator is a hot topic in Florida, where there had previously been only 17 such incidents since 1948. The three attacks — one beside a suburban canal, another in a pond behind some houses, and a third in a remote woodland spring — have caused anxiety in a state that is home to 16 million humans and more than 1 million alligators.

Over the ensuing week, 528 residents called the Florida FWCC — twice the rate during the same period last year — to report marauding reptiles. Wildlife officials say the spike in attacks is sheer coincidence, but point out that more alligators are moving this time of year as they search for water and food at the end of a long dry season. Florida's construction boom means that the ponds and canals where they end up are often in residential areas. "Every gator everyone sees now is a 'nuisance' gator in the public's eyes," Garvey sighs.

Garvey was born and raised in Florida, which helps explain why he spends his days wrestling with reptiles that have teeth like ten-penny nails. His love of the environment and its flora and fauna runs so deep that he has undergone extensive tattoo work to get an Everglades swamp scene — complete with alligators — put on his back. A gold chain with a glistening alligator pendant hangs around his neck. The license tag on his pickup truck bears the message "Protect the panther," a decal on the body adds "Protect the Everglades," and one on the window boasts "Ain't Skeered."