The body of a man who had been retrieving frisbees from a lake in a Florida public park that serves as habitat for alligators was found with his arm ripped off Tuesday, authorities said. It was the first deadly alligator attack in the state since 2019.
The incident occurred on a 53-acre lake in John S. Taylor Park in Largo, Florida, a Largo police department spokesman said. He added that police believed he had “involved a crocodile” in the death.
A spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission identified the victim only as a 47-year-old man.
The man was a “transient” who made a living selling frisbees to people who played disc golf on a lake parallel to the lake, and “died as a result of an alligator attack,” Paul said. Cozzie, Parks Director. and Conservation Resources in Pinellas County, he said in a telephone interview.
“It looks like it came in before the park opened; unfortunately, it’s not a good time to be on any lake, but especially during the alligator mating season,” Mr. Cozzie described the decision as “a mistake that seems to have cost him his life.”
Someone who was in the park around 8 a.m. saw the body on the shore of the lake with one of his arms cut off, Mr. Cozzie.
John S. Taylor Park includes a golf course across the lake. Park rangers had met with the man trying to enter the lake in April, Mr. Cozzie, and they told him another attempt would send him to the park.
Local discus golfers avoid cheap frisbees from supermarkets and prefer specialty discs designed to run specific types of throws, which makes their equipment valuable, Cozzie said. The man on Tuesday was not the first to be attacked by an alligator while trying to retrieve the records for money, he said, adding that a couple of years ago a man had been bitten in the face by an alligator in the same lake. but he survived.
The lake is down six to eight feet, Mr. Cozzie, so you have to “kick the bottom” to find records.
A hole in the disc golf course is so close to 25 to 50 feet from the water, Mr. Cozzie. “Certainly, it might be prudent for the golf disc group to look at relocating the hole,” he added.
He described the lake as connected to other nearby bodies of water, making it “almost like a road for alligators to move around the county.” There are signs warning people not to enter, and even park rangers cannot walk on the lake, Mr. Cozzie.
During the mating season, which occurs in May or June, alligators become more aggressive and territorial, said Mr. Cozzie. Alligators are most active between dusk and dawn, according to the Wildlife Commission, which said in a press release that an alligator had been sent “to remove a nearby alligator” after finding the body.
Later on Tuesday, wildlife officials captured and slaughtered an alligator near the site of the attack, according to WFLA-TV, an NBC affiliate in Tampa. An autopsy was to be performed to determine if the alligator was responsible for the man’s death.
It is more common for alligators to attack pets than to attack people, said Mr. Cozzie. According to the Wildlife Commission, over the past 10 years there has been an annual average of eight “major” incidents of alligators biting people in Florida, resulting in four deaths in total.
The remains of a 47-year-old woman who had been walking her dogs were discovered inside an alligator in 2018, and an alligator snatched a 2-year-old boy from a Disney resort in 2016.
A population of about 1.3 million alligators can be found in “virtually every body of freshwater and brackish water” in the state, according to the Wildlife Commission. The group says that alligators are “naturally afraid of humans,” but that feeding alligators, which is illegal, causes them to dangerously associate people with food.