Dear Editor,
I live on a pond in Kings Point and consider myself fortunate when an alligator takes up residence in the water and becomes my neighbor. A few days ago, I noticed an individual in a golf cart watching and snapping cellphone photos of one of the alligators as it swam across the water in her direction. The alligator turned and swam to the bank opposite to her location. She proceeded to move her golf cart over to the area where the gator stopped and continued snapping photos. I was watching all of this from my dining-room window.
Before long, the alligator crawled out of the water and up onto the bank, as they frequently do to either rest or sun themselves. It did not advance or move toward her in any threatening way. After snapping a few more photos, she pulled away and made a U-turn, circling around to position herself behind the gator’s location. After several minutes, she once again moved her golf cart up alongside the gator, which was still several yards down the bank, and snapped some more photos.
Finally she left, apparently going straight to her home to make a phone call because the following day, I was appalled to see a truck pull up towing a large cage.
For the next several hours, I watched as the two gators were baited, noosed and dragged out of the water to be hog-tied and thrown in a cage … likely to be destroyed. These gators had lived peacefully in the pond for many months. I never saw them be aggressive in any way. They never even attempted to attack the many egrets and herons that hunt for fish along the edge of the pond. I’ve watched them hunt and catch fish themselves, never seeing them seek out anything else such as pets or people. And I’ve never seen any person feed them. They did nothing to warrant being captured and hauled away like that.
In my opinion, this lady’s behavior bordered on harassment of the alligator, and she should have been the one to be removed from the area, not them.
Gayle Fischer
Kings Point
Dear Editor,
Thirty years ago, when visiting SCC you would not have seen protest and political signage tipped or untipped on front lawns. Fifteen years ago, you would not have seen mobile homes, storage containers, boats and commercial vans parked in driveways or front and side lawns. The lawn signage and construction will only be temporary, but the disregard of the community residential appearance is becoming the new permanent look of Greater Sun City Center, and the SCC Community Association is powerless to stop it.
Bob Kelly
Sun City Center
