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Jeffrey Kofman Goes to the Everglades Alligator Habitat to Better Understand This Week's Deaths
By JEFFREY KOFMAN
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla., May 16, 2006 � Back in the 1950s when Gator Park opened, it sat deep in the Florida Everglades, a long way from Miami. But today it is only a few minutes from the city's edge to the airboat docks where tourists assemble for a firsthand look at alligators in their native habitat.
Heading west from the city to the Everglades on Tamiami Trail, you can see where wetlands have been bulldozed to make way for yet another sprawling housing development. But the moment you cross Krome Avenue the houses stop and wilderness begins. A giant drainage canal parallels the two-lane highway.
Glance over at the canal as you drive past, and you can see the telltale outline of alligators as they cruise about, oblivious to the uneasy coexistence that has made them feared by their human neighbors just down the road.
Gator Guide Baffled by Attacks
Gator Park itself is one of those appealing relics of another era. The shop is loaded with tourist paraphernalia. There are picnic tables out front. But the real appeal here are the nine airboats that take the adventurous into this land of the exotic.
Dan Coltrane has been an Everglades guide for 15 years. He said he also wrestles gators. "Only got bit once," he said. With his ponytail and earring and his deep raspy voice, he could double for a pirate. But his passion is here.
We clamber into his boat as he climbs onto his elevated perch. He puts his hand on the joystick.....
The rest: http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1969417&page=1
By JEFFREY KOFMAN
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla., May 16, 2006 � Back in the 1950s when Gator Park opened, it sat deep in the Florida Everglades, a long way from Miami. But today it is only a few minutes from the city's edge to the airboat docks where tourists assemble for a firsthand look at alligators in their native habitat.
Heading west from the city to the Everglades on Tamiami Trail, you can see where wetlands have been bulldozed to make way for yet another sprawling housing development. But the moment you cross Krome Avenue the houses stop and wilderness begins. A giant drainage canal parallels the two-lane highway.
Glance over at the canal as you drive past, and you can see the telltale outline of alligators as they cruise about, oblivious to the uneasy coexistence that has made them feared by their human neighbors just down the road.
Gator Guide Baffled by Attacks
Gator Park itself is one of those appealing relics of another era. The shop is loaded with tourist paraphernalia. There are picnic tables out front. But the real appeal here are the nine airboats that take the adventurous into this land of the exotic.
Dan Coltrane has been an Everglades guide for 15 years. He said he also wrestles gators. "Only got bit once," he said. With his ponytail and earring and his deep raspy voice, he could double for a pirate. But his passion is here.
We clamber into his boat as he climbs onto his elevated perch. He puts his hand on the joystick.....
The rest: http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1969417&page=1