Canoeing with Alligators

To hear my sister talk, canoeing with alligators is an act of sheer folly. One might as well have dinner with a group of flesh eating zombies, such are one's chances of survival. So here are the possible alligator responses to an approaching canoe in order of liklihood:

Well hidden!

1) Alligator does nothing, looks at you but you don't even see it!

Alligator does nothing ..

2) You see it, it sees you, and the alligator still does nothing.

This fellow will just slowly sink ...

3) The alligator is in the water and slowly sinks, regardless of whether you see it or not.

Slippin' in backwards

4) The alligator is out of the water, gets spooked and dives or slips in -- you will know.

5) The alligator sits up, supported by his long tail and hind legs, and begins to recite Shakespearean sonnets in a remarkably well refined BBC accent. (Look for DVD in stores.)








6) The alligator launches toward the boat, knocks it from below, capsizing the boat, and promptly begins to devour the unwary paddler(s). (Image not available: too gruesome.)

Catching some rays

Now, having said this there were some interesting moments. Imagine, if you will, paddling down a shallow, narrow slough -- maybe 6' wide and 2' deep -- and about 10 meters in front of you an alligator the size of your canoe and weighing 10x more than you dives into the water. Now this poses a rather interesting dilemma. What do you do? Continue on, knowing you will have to paddle right over this beast's back? Or maybe you wait for the alligator to ... to do what? Leave? Ha! What are the odds of that! You could, then, just turn around and find another way forward. My choice ... paddle on! ... with trepidation. Nine out of ten times I passed never knowing what happened to the alligator, but also knowing he was not far away! Occasionally, I would bump the alligators back, much to his/her annoyance but also with no lasting discomfort to either the alligator or myself.

They sometimes hang out in groups

Another interesting phenomena, though possibly a figment of my overactive imagination, is when an alligator sees you coming, slips or dives off the shore and swims directly toward you, submerging along the way; 10 seconds later you feel something hit your canoe from below. Now, I swear, this happened a lot! Of course, it is a swamp and there are sticks and logs and a million other things that might strike the bottom of a canoe -- so perhaps it is just a coincidence that 10 seconds after the alligator starts swimming toward you the bump from below is felt. Hmm ... I think not! (At least it makes for a better story ...)

Except for the occasional heart stopping moment when you startle one alligator who leaps into the water with a huge splash, thus startling the other EIGHT alligators that are sleeping nearby and they ALL then leap into the water and all NINE of them start swimming toward your boat, canoeing with alligators is pretty uneventful.

The old girl feeling right at home ...

So it would seem that canoeing alongside alligators is no different than encountering any wild animal -- they all can bite, they all can be dangerous, they all deserve respect and simply put the old axiom remains true, especially with alligators: "Leave them alone, and they will leave you alone."






Alligators have been known to attack people (In the US : 17 fatalities in the past 50 years) so giving them a wide berth is certainly not ill-advised.

The video above from youtube shows why one should never feed wild animals, nor release exotic pets into the wild. This little fellow will one day be killed because he is no longer afraid of people and will get too big and go too far! Or he simply won't survive the Illinois winter! 

Quiet and peaceful