Alligator Threat?

[TheMoore's]

We will be caching in the Tampa area this month. Being from New England, I am not familiar with the flora and fauna threat of Florida. Are alligators really prevalent or extremely rare? Are there any killer spiders I should watch out for? Snakes? Helpful hints would be greatly appreciated.

We are leaving tomorrow...Thanks!

 

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"You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine. Let's go."

[+GatoRx]

It will all depend on the area you're in. There's always a chance of an alligator in pretty much any body of freshwater in Florida, but you probably won't encounter one. From what I know of, they tend to prefer slow-moving or still water (why swim against a strong current?) and areas where there's food to be found. Just don't get too close to the water, and remember that while they can leap out of the water quite quickly, they're not very fast on land (except for short bursts.) They are good swimmers though, so don't try to outswim one.

 

As for spiders, black widows and brown recluse are the ones to watch out for. The banana spiders can get very big (I've seen leg spans on them of around 10 inches), but they seem to be more active during the heat of summer.

 

Snakes are another possibility; we've got some forms of all of the poisonous varieties, as well as many nonpoisonous species. Just use your head - watch your step, look to the other side of a log before stepping over it, don't put your hand where you can't see, etc., and you should be okay.

 

One more thing to remember though is that Florida seems to be a popular spot for people to release non-native animals, so you can never be completely sure what you might see (the Ocala National Forest in north central FL used to have monkeys from the Tarzan TV show that were set loose/escaped.)

 

Just remember to keep your eyes open and use common sense, and you should have a pretty good time. Have fun caching!

 

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When in doubt, poke it with a stick.

[+shawhh]

while i certainly would not feel able to comment on all the possibly dangerous fauna in florida, i do have some experience with alligators, having canoed the swamps of north carolina, southwest louisiana, the okefenokee swamp, and 2 canoe trips into the everglades/ten thousand islands region. an adult human has little to fear from the average alligator. my experience has been that they either completely ignore you or unhurriedly go the other way as you approach. with a large gator, i would be careful if i had children or pets (read dog) with me as they would be more in the prey size range for the gator. can't discount the possibility of any reptile proving the exception to the rule but this has been my experience. florida is a great state with scenery and wildlife not seen elsewhere in the u.s. would echo gatorx in that using common sense and keeping your eyes open should prevent unpleasantness. enjoy your trip. -harry

[TheMoore's]

Thanks for the information! I AM a little nervous about spiders and snakes now, but at least I won't freak if I see an alligator...I guess I will make my husband go first. Thanks again...and if you ever get to New England all you have to worry about is deer ticks!

 

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"You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine. Let's go."

[+Bloencustoms]

I've lived in southeast Louisiana my entire life, and have been on many forays into the "wild". I can honestly say that I have only seen about ten snakes, and two alligators. They usually don't want to encounter us any more than we do them. As for the spiders, some areas can get real heavy populatins of golden silk spiders and crab spiders. The best thing is to take a stick and wave it in circles in front of you as you go through thick brush. It looks stupid, but it's a good way to avoid the "web in the face suprise".

 

There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken.

[+Alan2]

quote:

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at least I won't freak if I see an alligator...I guess I will make my husband go first.

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Good idea!

[+GatoRx]

quote:

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Originally posted by Countess2002:

and if you ever get to New England all you have to worry about is deer ticks!

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Oh yeah, we have those too. I don't know the exact species of the tick, but we do have them. From my experience, they really like palmetto (it looks sort of like the top of a palm tree stuck in the ground. They're everywhere in Florida woodlands.) And from what I learned in Boy Scouts, rattlesnakes also love palmetto.

 

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When in doubt, poke it with a stick.

[Joe_Nathan]

GatorRX is right. Here in Tampa Bay, if there is a freshwater or brackish body of water, chances are there are gators and snakes in it!

 

If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. Most important...don't feed them anything.

 

Banana spiders are common to Tampa Bay, especially for forming webs across trails during the night.

 

Watch out for fire ant piles in grassy/sandy areas. You will recognize them by a mound of grey soil.

 

Other than that, have fun caching in the area, there are some great caches in the parks and wilderness areas

[+Katetrex]

I reco carrying a large hiking stick and some pepper spray. Alligators are uncharacteristically aggressive in the Spring and early summer, during mating and nesting season. They become very territorial, expand their normal territories and will come after you! It is too early and too cold for this to be an issue, yet. I think the most common snakes we have are Coral snakes (red touches yellow-kill a fella=Coral Snake, red touches black-friend of Jack=King Snake), Rattlesnakes, and Water Mocassins. Fortunately, I have not come across any of these as yet out caching, nor I have seen any alligators caching. I have seen lots of nonvenomous snakes, generally lying on paths in sunny spots to soak up some heat. I do see lots of gators when kayaking but know of only two instances where they were aggressive. In Orlando a gator attacked a kayak to get the fisherman's fish that were on a stringer hanging in the water. Second was near Ocala during nesting season where they gator head-bashed a kayak and cracked it. The kayaker did not hang around to see what other action this reptile would take. My main fear is wild hogs and snakes, I try to make noise and don't reach under any bushes without pushing the flora aside with a stick.

[Orions]

If your out near any swampy area (everglades) I would just keep a eye out about a hour before sunset and all during the night on any paved roads if they have swamps on both sides. The gators usually comes out to take in the heat from the paved roads at that time.

 

Also if you get a chance to visit the Everglades and your still in the park at night the best way to find gators in the water is to shine a flash light accross the water. You wont see the body but their eyes will give a glow back from the flash light.

[+altree]

It isn't as bad as it sounds. I keep my eyes open and carry a walking stick. I have not had any bad experiences geocaching yet but you never know. I have come upon gaters hunting and have had no problems of course it helped that i had a shotgun or rifle at the time lol. Usually the caches arn't in a area that will give you problems. I have been in the swamps looking for a cache but was my fault as there was another way to get to it that i didn't know about. Just use common sense when in the woods and keep your eyes open and you should not have a problem. The spiders arn't that bad but look first befor putting your hand into a stump or opening. The bananna spiders are just big and had them walking on me on many ocasions going through the woods. they aren't agressive and other than big should not give you a problem. Again just use common sense and keep your eyes open.

 

Altree

(you will not starve with a p38 and a can of food)

[TheMoore's]

We finally went on our first Florida geocache and survived. We saw a dozen armadillos and one black (only) snake. I didn't go deep in the palmettos and my honey used the walking stick to push the leaves aside. I was a little freaked out, jumping at eveything that moved, but luckily I did not see one spider!! Thanks again for all the advice and thanks for telling me what a palmetto is. They are mentioned in almost every cache description and I had no clue what they were. I know now!! I look forward to the next one.

 

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"You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine. Let's go."

[+ScottJ]

I lived in Orlando for a few years and got to Tampa fairly often. The most vivid memory I have of Tampa was a banana spider.

 

I was sitting at a traffic light on Dale Mabry in July, windows down, enjoying a nice breeze, when I glanced over at the car next to me. At that moment, a HUGE spider with a leg span of at least 8 inches crawled out of the front wheel well of that car. It crawled across the hood, onto the windshield, and down the other side of the car out of sight. I swear, it was something out of the movie "Arachnophobia" -- this thing looked like it was wearing the furs of small mammals.

 

I rolled up my windows, turned on my A/C, and drove home with my skin crawling...

 

I hate spiders.

 

--

Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

[Orions]

Glad you could enjoy our sunsine state. I've lived here over 24 years and I've never seen a armadillo, well at least not a live one (seen them dead on side of road). Now that is one animal I would enjoy seeing here.

 

Congratz on surviving our wildlife

[+GatoRx]

Glad to hear your trip went well, and that all of the advice was helpful.

 

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When in doubt, poke it with a stick.

[Ultimamind]

This post hasn't been active for a while, but here's my $.02...well, it's actually more like $12.85, but anyway, it may be helpful to you who are new to Florida.

 

I've grown up in Florida since the tender age of 3....and spent most of my youth running around in the swampy areas in western palm beach county, including cypress stands, mangrove hammocks on the east side by the water, and just plain deserted backwoods areas. After reading the posts above, I have to say, yes, there's still plenty of wildlife around...

 

Armadillos - we had one living under our front porch for a while (no kidding). I came home one night and there it was rooting around for food. Scared the daylights out of me, but it just took off...best time to see these little guys is at night, of course. I've seen whole bunches of them, out west on Northlake Blvd, along the side of the road at night. I guess they're looking for dinner. We also have a POSSUM population (opossum, if you prefer), and you would encounter these guys at night too.

 

Raccoons - watch these, as they're known to carry rabies, and I'm sure you don't want to get involved with that! They're everywhere, and they like to hang around parks because of the plentiful supply of food in the dumpsters on the weekends. Yeah, I know they're cute, but they are NOT pets. They usually run away when they see you, but they do not restrict their activities to night-time.

 

Snakes - I've seen water moccasins (a whole batch of babies + their mad mom) within the past year in a canal that runs right through a heavily populated residential area. We live on a bend in the canal, and it's kind of quiet here, so I guess they just set up shop for nesting. These guys get agressive when defending their young. Watch canals & areas w/water for them. Seriously.

 

Coral Snake/King snakes - have only seen 2 of these in my entire time here....One coral (Aiigggh!) and one King (in my backyard, no less, and we lived in SUBURBIA). That was many years ago. However, these are natives, and I'm sure they're out there in a lot of the parks and natural areas because we've run them out of everywhere else. Teach yourself that rhyme (Red on Black, friend of Jack; Red on Yellow, kill a fellow)....I had to learn that when I was about 6 years old, so I know you can, too. And, while frozen in fear you can spend a minute looking at the bands of the snake to see which one you've happened on. Unless you stumble on a nest, they will usually go the other way. You should go the other way too. And please don't kill them....they perform a necessary service. If you're out in the cane fields of the western communities there are LOTS of snakes, because (and you may not have known this, but...) there are LOTS of rats running around in the cane. Like a buffet for these guys.

 

I can't even begin to count the other kinds of snakes I've run across, garden snakes, black racers, one giant black indigo (at least that's what we think it was)....some of which ended up in the swimming pool, others just hanging out sunning themselves. One of them I mistook for the garden hose, you only do THAT once....

 

Gators - I've been swimming in a small lake that had an adult 8 ft gator in it...of course, had I known I would've got the heck out of there! Also been boating/canoeing right alongside smaller gators (4 ft or so). They were in the lakes on campus when I went to college (we had signs, BEWARE OF GATORS, and they meant it!). They were everywhere in the lakes on the grounds of the office complex where I worked in central Boca Raton (not in the boonies). They will almost always swim on the other way. I've been one foot away from a gator (in a boat), eyeball to eyeball, and I gotta say, it's scary. But awe-inspiring. And, yes, the gator in question, swam away. I don't think I moved for about 5 minutes. Look for what appears to be dead wood or a log floating in the water (just a little piece of it - less than a foot)...you may be looking at the snout and eyes of a gator.

 

The gator attack stories you hear are usually because of 2 things:

#1) The post above was right on - mating season is when they get seriously agressive. They are around in all the bodies of water, including drainage canals that seem like they are too close to man to host gators. And if you run into one that's near a nest, they MAY sense you are a threat and take after you or your boat. The nests are usually by vegetation in the water or in marshy areas, so if you find yourself caching someplace like this....stay clear of the underbrush.

 

#2) The WORST thing that happens is that PEOPLE FEED GATORS - so PLEASE DON'T!!! Not only is this against the law, but this causes gators to lose their fear of people, and they come cruising right up looking for a snack when people do this, creating danger for everyone. Gators who are fed often start to hang around where people are, and are considered nuisance gators. What usually happens is the gator is destroyed (read: removed and killed, because it's a threat to man).

 

Check out this Univ. of Florida website for more info on gators and humans:

http://agrigator.ifas.ufl.edu/gators/

 

Uh, one other thing, we also have crocodiles down here...they've been spotted from the Keys as far north now as Jupiter Inlet. They're rare, they look slightly different than the gator (gators are dark blackish gray, crocs are lighter brown), but they should be respected for all the same reasons....!

 

Finally - SPIDERS - uh. Most, even the really, really spiny ugly ones and the giant long legged ones are harmless. They eat the zillions of insects that call Florida home, and as such as the good guys of the insect kingdom (at least as far as I'm concerned). I was bitten on the leg by a spider and had to have medical care only once (this was in Miami, so don't think it only happens out in the swamps)...don't know what kind of spider, but the doc thought maybe a brown recluse. We never saw it, but the bite area became red, inflamed, and painful after just 10-12 hours. Within a day it was painful to walk. Doc said if I had waited another 24 hours, I would have had to go to the hospital. Check out these website to see pics of the common spiders we have here, and know before you go....so you can appreciate what you see.

 

Pictures here: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/TOPIC_Spiders (check the links for venomous and common Florida spiders)

 

Great scientific info here, too:

http://pherec.org/entguides/EntGuide7-Spiders.html

 

Mosquitos - Don't go out at dusk, feeding time for mosquitos. And wear your bug repellent, for pete's sake. You can catch malaria or west nile virus nowadays....who'd a thunk it!?! We're probably at a greater risk of catching that than anything else mentioned.

 

Have I scared ya yet? Don't worry these stories are from 30 years or so of running around barefoot in South Florida (not recommended while caching ). If I had to say the one thing I do to keep myself safe, is to BE ALERT. Watch where you are going, and keep your eyes open for wildlife wherever you are. And I recommend ALWAYS use a poking stick, not your hands when looking around dead leaves and other ground cover. You never know what you'll find! And I'd rather a stick find it, than my bare hands.

 

Side note: my first cache had a chameleon hidden with it, and as soon as I uncovered the cache, the dadgum thing leapt out at me. I don't care how harmless a chameleon is, when you wake him up and he jumps on you, it's a real adrenelin rush. So....FYI.

 

Happy Florida Caching!

Krista

[Ultimamind]

One more thing that bites - and HURTS -

 

FIRE ANTS

 

Have you encountered any of these? Mounds are usually built above ground, sometimes they are large, other times you don't notice them. These critters are everywhere in SoFLa, and they will bite you if you step into their turf.

 

They're tiny, reddish-brown fat ants...those who are highly allergic watch out. I get a nasty reaction from these, and have to take benedryl if bitten even once or twice. Some may experience anaphylactic shock (sp?) if you're allergic to stinging insects. Bring epipen if you're one of those folks....seriously. Can cause severe reactions in some, nothing more than an itchy spot in others. If you don't know how you'll react, err on the side of caution and bring benedryl at least.

 

Krista