FOXSYLVANIA

– – Talk about having a terrible, no good, really bad day!   Wallace Weatherholt, a 63-year-old airboat captain in the Florida Everglades, was giving a tour of the area on June 12th to an Indiana family and hanging fish over the side of his boat when a nine-foot alligator sank its teeth into his wrist, severing his hand.

The mutilated captain drove the boat back to its dock with one hand, and was promptly taken to the hospital.  His severed hand was found in the alligator’s stomach, but could not be reattached.  Six weeks later, the airboat captain was charged with feeding an alligator, a second-degree misdemeanor.  Arrested, Weatherholt faces a fine of up to $500 and a possible jail sentence.  He posted $1,000 bail since his arrest, and will appear in court later in August. 

The alligator was tracked down by officers of the Florida Wildlife Commission, and put to death shortly after the attack.  Laws against feeding alligators are intended to protect both animals and humans, as alligators when fed lose their fear of humans…

This entry was posted on August 7, 2012 at 2:09 am and is filed under animal behavior, animal occurrences, animals, body parts, controversial, environmental, scalies. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.