ORLANDO, Fla. — About 250 alligators have been removed from Disney properties since an alligator killed 2-year-old Lane Thomas Graves from the shores of Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa five years ago.
Disney management and staff have worked directly with trappers contracted through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to remove them. Disney has also installed a boulder wall and reptile warning signs at the resort, as well as reinforced training among Disney staff.
The majority of nuisance gators taken from Disney are euthanized and sold for their hide and meat, according to FWC spokesperson Tammy Sapp. Some are transferred to alligator farms, animal exhibits and zoos, while those less than 4 feet are relocated, Sapp said. Trappers receive a $30 stipend for every captured gator, plus the proceeds from any leather and meat sold.
Disney guests said they’re glad the resort is proactively removing gators from its properties. A biology expert agreed, adding that the removals should have a minimal impact on the Florida alligator population.
Travel agency owner Gina Parsley, 33, said her family stayed at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort last month and remembers her 9-year-old daughter Gabriella spotting an alligator peeking from the water. After sprinting to a campground employee, her family was informed they were monitoring the gator and had placed traps to capture it.
“We did not feel like it was a surprise to them,” Parsley said. “I would have been more concerned if my daughter had brought it to their attention and they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, where?’”
A staff member informed her the gator had been evading the traps, but said she understood the herculean task of keeping such a property gator-free.
“You see neighborhoods where a gator just strolls across someone’s lawn and rings the doorbell,” she said. “It’s Florida: They do that. So, there’s definitely fighting against nature with that one.”
Florida has a stable alligator population of about 1.3 million. In order for an alligator to be considered a nuisance within the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program, it must be at least 4 feet long and pose a threat to people, pets and property. Within the last five years, FWC received an average of 17,000 statewide complaints and removed close to 8,000 alligators annually.
The removal of the nuisance gators from Disney properties doesn’t have a significant impact on the population, according to Deby Cassill, the integrative biology associate campus chair at the University of South Florida. That’s because the alligators live on already developed land.
“Removing gators from the areas where they are intersecting with humans is not detrimental to that environment,” Cassill said. “It’s already been compromised by development.”
If gators were relocated to remote areas, they would try to return to their capture site or cause issues within healthy alligator populations, which can result in the newly introduced and resident alligators fighting or even killing each other.
“They have a great GPS system. They’ll go back to where their hunting ground was,” she said. “So there’s no removal strategy unless you put them behind a cage in the zoo.”
Up to 500 alligators can be removed from Disney property within a 14-year time span ending April 2023, according to FWC Targeted Harvest Area permits, and at least 429 have been removed so far.
“The FWC takes public safety seriously and uses Targeted Harvest Area (THA) permits as part of a comprehensive effort to achieve alligator management goals,” Sapp wrote. “THA permits allow a managing authority to work directly with a designated FWC contracted nuisance alligator trapper, making the process for removing nuisance alligators more proactive and streamlined.”
Samantha Crociata, a 36-year-old baker, began going to the Disney parks at the age of 3, and now brings her little ones, 2-year-old Ellie and 7-year old Rosie, with her. Although she didn’t stay at the Grand Floridian, she said her heart broke when she heard what happened to the Graves family.
“When I hear stories like that, no matter what it is, I always feel like I put myself in that family’s shoes,” Crociata said.
In Florida, there have been three fatal bite attacks since 2016 and no reported bite incidents at Disney properties, Sapp wrote.
Cassill said the attack that killed Lane happened during alligator mating season. As waters warm, males scan for females and females search for food. It’s within the carnivore’s nature to attack anything within about a 6-foot distance, she said.
“The temptation for that animal, which was a very normal response from the alligator’s perspective, was, ‘oh my gosh, an easy meal to catch, this will hold me over for two or three more weeks,’” she said.
The severely depleted American Alligator population in the mid-20th century was revived following the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. Through Alligator farms and reintroduction, Cassill said the state had succeeded in providing territory for the animal that has led to its return to abundance.
Cassill said that it was wise for Disney to place the barriers and uproot the reptiles.
“I don’t see a harm in removing and euthanizing some of the alligators that are in positions to do what they normally do and that is to find food,” Cassill said. “We want to keep them away from children and pets as much as possible.”
After his death, Lane’s family founded the Lane Thomas Foundation in his memory to help families with kids in need of live-saving organ transplants.
———
