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Hangin with gators

  • Thread starter Ozzy
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Ozzy

SirKristoff is a poopiehead
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The last few weeks I have been spending a lot of time a local lake watching and trying to learn as much as I can about alligators. The more time I spent there the closer I could get to them. The last two times I was there they got so close that I could touch them. A lot of people feed them in this spot and it has caused them to loose their fear of humans. I used the fact that they thought I was going to feed them to get them as close to me as possible. I also have some awesome videos, but I don't have most of them uploaded yet because Myspace won't accept videos edited with quicktime for some reason. If anybody knows a soulution for this please let me know.

8-02-08

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I talked to a man that told me that this gator is named Eleweeze. She is around 10 feet long. She is the top gator on this side of the lake. I've seen her chase other gators away that got to close to her. You don't know how big she is until you see her come out of the water and lands on top of another gator. The splash was indescribable. She only has one good eye. I have no idea what happened to her other eye. My guess is a fight with another gator or somebody either poked it or shot it. The day that I took these pics, she was in an area that it wasn't safe to approch her. So I just took these pics.
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There is also a lot of birds in this area.
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This gator I call Bighead because his head seems to be too big for his body. He's only about five feet long. He seemed very non aggressive, but that's typical for a gator his size. I have a great video of him but I can't upload it to myspace.

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This next pic shows why I call him Bighead.
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To Be Continued....
 
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Another pic that why I named him Bighead
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Bighead was a lot of fun, but the next time I went, I got a lot closer to a gator that was much bigger.
 
That's great - I've always liked these huge reptiles but the most we've got here are Tiger Salamanders in the window wells.

My mom was invited on vacation with my uncles family to FL where they stayed in their RV in some park. My mom got turned around on her way back from the park bathroom in the middle of the night and spent the rest of the night night sitting on top of a picnic table lost and listening to the gators growl. So now she hates gators!
I told her the gators probably couldn't have gotten to her up on the picnic table but the mountain lions probly could have. ;)
 
Fun stuff. His head does seem awkwardly large compared to body size. Gators really are fascinating creatures. Looking forward to seeing the videos. Hope you get it figured out.

xvart.
 
Ozzy- use windows media encoder and transcode that sucker to .wmv and youtube should take it no problems, might take a while tho
 
08-09-08

08-09-08

When I first got there, I saw a gator that I think is Bighead but I didn't get close enough to see.

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A few pics of the lake.

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You never see two gators very close to each other. If one get's near another, the biggest one will attack and chase the smaller one away. This is about as close as they get.
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I have some amazing pics of a gator that I didn't name. I amazed by this gator. He was about 8 feet long.

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I know a lot of these pics are not centered of in perfect focus, but it's really hard to get the picture just right and watch the gator to make sure he doesn't get too close. I need a cameraman, any volunteers?

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Here's a video of this gator

<a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=41283538">Alligator</a><br/><object width="425px" height="360px" ><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="movie" value="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=41283538,t=1,mt=video,searchID=,primarycolor=,secondarycolor="/><embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=41283538,t=1,mt=video,searchID=,primarycolor=,secondarycolor=" width="425" height="360" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /></object>


This was an amazing experience. On the way home I called a friend that have been wanting to go with me to this lake. I told him about how I got the gator to come right up to me. I could tell he didn't believe me. We made plans to meet here the next weekend, and Eleweeze meet us and she wasn't very happy.
 
Wow, that one in the video got really close.
 
All I can say is that is an acciendent waiting to happen. What if a little kid saw you do that?
 
8-17-08

When we first showed up Eleweeze was waiting for us. For some reason she kept her distance from us. Since she was there all the other gators stayed far away.

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I promised my friend that I would get him close enough to touch a gator. Eleweeze was not getting close enough and she wouldn't let any of the other gators get within 50 feet. She seemed really grumpy too. She hissed at us and charged us. Then a van from Virginia pulled up. a man, and a few kids got out. A woman stayed in the van. My buddy told me to make the gator hiss. So I approached her and sure enough she hissed and charged at me with her mouth wide open. They all ran back to the van. It was so funny.
The woman was yelling "Get back in the van!!"

At one point Eleweeze was just staring at my buddy. He's from NYC. I asked him "Do you know what she's thinking?"

He said "No what?"

I said she'd thinking "UUMMM yankee"

LOL



There was other gators all watching us but we couldn't get them to approach because of Eleweeze. One got a little too close and Eleweeze took off after him. She was on top of him before he could get away.

There was a bird that was standing on a stump for over 45 minutes.

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Then I noticed something else near the stump.

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One of the two will disapear in just a few minutes.

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Can you guess which one?

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Are you sure?

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Wrong, it was the alligator.

Here's another bird.
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Soon some people stopped a little ways down the lake and Eleweeze left and went towards them because she thought they would throw her food. When she left we started working on the other gators to try and get them to approach. We got two to get within 20 feet and then Eleweeze came back and they ran away.We worked over an hour to get them to approach and in a few seconds they were gone. So we tried to get Eleweeze to approach us. She would get within 10 feet and no closer. After a few hours of I guess she decided to get a little closer. She came right up to us. I was standing there looking down at her. I tapped on the wood of the dam I was standing on to see if she would react. She did. She started slowly rasing up out of the water straight at me. The first time she did it I thought she was going to come all the way onto the dock. I felt a feeling that I don't feel very often, fear. I jumped to the other side of the dam. She went back into the water. I tried it again and she did the same thing. This time I stood my ground. She put her head on the dam. It was amazing to look down at this huge preditor only inches away from me. When she raised up out of the water, she would bend her neck forward. This would cause her head to look even larger than it does when she's in the water. My goal was to touch her snout to get her to open her mouth. I was trying to get the nerve up, I told my buddy that she scares me. The other gators didn't, but she did. Something about her made me nervous. Here's the video.


<a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=41285978">Playing with gators</a><br/><object width="425px" height="360px" ><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="movie" value="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=41285978,t=1,mt=video,searchID=,primarycolor=,secondarycolor="/><embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=41285978,t=1,mt=video,searchID=,primarycolor=,secondarycolor=" width="425" height="360" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /></object>

In the video it looks like I hit her on the snout, but it was a very light touch.

Here's a pic of my buddy thinking about trying what I did.

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I got a video of this that I'm uploading right now. I'll post it as soon as it's done.

I just want to say that I have spent a lot of time with these gators, I have watched them for hours. Please do not try to do what I did.
 
  • #10
<a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=41382552">Mike with Eleweeze</a><br/><object width="425px" height="360px" ><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="movie" value="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=41382552,t=1,mt=video,searchID=,primarycolor=,secondarycolor="/><embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=41382552,t=1,mt=video,searchID=,primarycolor=,secondarycolor=" width="425" height="360" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /></object>
 
  • #11
:-)) Is that dock even finished!? Its only 3 boards thick! Also, I didn't realize the southern acceint was that strong. Maybe it was because my uncle from Geogria never talks.
 
  • #12
It's not a dock, it's a flood dam.

You're just too use to hearing the New England accent.
 
  • #13
In the video it looks like I hit her on the snout, but it was a very light touch.

It looks like she was laughing afterwords! Ozzy, I would volunteer to do anything!

xvart.
 
  • #14
Well get down here and grab a camera.
 
  • #15

Eloise?? (My mother's name)


Pretty soon will be the video of you being rushed to the emergency room with your arm bitten off. You'll only have one arm but you'll have a great video!

???
 
  • #16
Eloise?? (My mother's name)


Is your mom missing her right eye?

I'm going to feel so bad if she is. :blush:
Pretty soon will be the video of you being rushed to the emergency room with your arm bitten off. You'll only have one arm but you'll have a great video!

I'll be just like Amos Moses then. I should have my own reality show.
 
  • #17
If there's a profile of a person likely to be bit by an alligator, the profile has Ozzy's photo on it. There was a show a couple years ago about a Dr. who specialized in treating snakebite victims in California and what he described as the typical snakebite victim seems pretty familiar.
 
  • #18
Oh yeah that dude with the ponytail. That was a great show.
 
  • #19
Steve Irwin would have jumped in there and hugged it.
 
  • #20
I wish I was in the same category as Steve Irwin.
 
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