2 Year Old Grabbed By Alligator At Disney Resort

I'm so horrified by this. We've been there several dozen times and have stood in the very spot where this happened.

With that said, there have always been and will always be alligators at Disney. The whole park sits on was was a natural area with wetlands. In Florida, if there is a body of water it should just be assumed there is an alligator in it. While we Floridians are accustomed to that, however, our visitors are often unaware of this cohabitation with creatures that have the ability to eat us. People have always used the lakes and rivers in Florida for water sports, but it carries a risk.

Disney posts signs all along the lake shorelines stating No Swimming and those signs also exist in the location where this terrible tragedy happened. Still, every time we've seen a gator at Disney we heard comments from people around us who were shocked and appalled that alligators would be present on Disney property.

Being at Disney tends to hypnotize people into believing they are in a little bubble where nothing can go wrong. The reality is that it is impossible to put an impenetrable fence around such a massive area to keep out the wildlife. Alligators swim from pond to pond and lake to lake through a network of canals, creeks, stormwater systems, and even sometimes over land. If you remove one, another one will move in. It is the way of life in Florida around fresh water, whether on Disney property or in your own backyard.

And it may get even worse, now that Nile Crocodiles have been caught in the Everglades.

Beachgirl said:

Disney posts signs all along the lake shorelines stating No Swimming and those signs also exist in the location where this terrible tragedy happened. Still, every time we've seen a gator at Disney we heard comments from people around us who were shocked and appalled that alligators would be present on Disney property.

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The resort isn't even shy about the presence of the animals. And they're not shy about how dangerous their waterways are, either. The wakezones on the 7 Seas Lagoon are ridiculous, and with the little islands - especially what used to be Discovery Island - now mostly abandoned, there's plenty of land area for the animals to trench in.

I can't imagine what that family is going through, and considering how this happened I hope they've got access to some intensive therapy to get over the inevitable feelings of guilt. I also hope their other two kidlets were otherwise occupied with other things and missed the actual moment this happened. That's not an image they need in their little heads.

ShaunHorton said:

And it may get even worse, now that Nile Crocodiles have been caught in the Everglades.

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I think that fear is being overstated. Discussed here.

As to Disney, what they don't have is "Beware of Alligators" signs. It's true that there are alligators on the property. And it's true that there's not much to be done for that. But these alligators are generally not going to attack people. It's a rare thing. So Disney probably thought it okay to not put up "Beware" signs, because they don't want to scare the tourists (whose money Disney wants). But the possibility of this kind of tragedy has always existed. It's a horrible, horrible thing. There's nothing to be done for it now, but Disney is going to pay a big price.

regdog said:

Are there warning signs about alligators, or just No Swimming signs?

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I've never seen animal warnings outside the Animal Kingdom. The signs prohibit entering the water. There are either 7 or 9 beaches in use at the Grand Floridian and 2 or 3 at the Polynesian Village, but you can only walk on the sand. The wave-maker from the 70's is long since dismantled, and swimming is strictly contained to pools.

Unfortunately, the beaches are open. They have nightly campfires out there and nightly movies, and the life guard coverage at the beaches is spotty, due to the "no swimming" policy. I can definitely understand how an out of state guest could mistake an open beach for a place to go wading, especially someone from a landlocked state whose kids have maybe never seen a beach before.

We've had employees mention the alligators before, and the fact that - since the lagoon was man made (it's where Disney got the dirt to make the 2nd-story foundation for the 1st park) it's got a deceptively steep drop of. It goes from inches to 12-18 feet with no warning, and the water is solidly brown/green and filled with plants. The most terrifying place I've ever seen there is the dock at the "treehouse villas." The villas are awesome, but there's no light on the dock, and no retaining walls. Just a thin chain about 3 feet off the ground to indicate the edges of the pier. It's shrouded in trees and isolated to the point that someone could fall in and no one else would ever hear them.

Incidentally, in searching for the gator in question, they've already trapped four others that were in the same lagoon.

Yeah, yikes. Poor parents. Sometimes the universe spits up a story so outrageous you wouldn't accept it in fiction. It makes sense that a toddler could be taken by an alligator in Florida. The whole peninsula is their habitat, after all. But it's not supposed to happen smack in the middle of the world's most famous fun park. Someone must have pissed off the gods of PR.

Coming from a country where very large, dangerous crocodiles do reliably (if infrequently) eat people, I've always seen American alligators as kind of the puppy dogs of the crocodilian world. Which is probably dumb, given they're extremely successful ambush predators in their own right, but it never occured to me (and I've stood by that lagoon) that there was any actual danger to human beings. The illusion of unbounded comfort and wellbeingness at Disney is pretty absolute. I don't know how this horrific episode will affect that.

I just hope they don't resort to killing the animals, or anything.

Albedo said:

I just hope they don't resort to killing the animals, or anything.

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The four that have been caught, along with any others, including the one that took the boy, are scheduled for euthanasia.

They should be forced to put up warning signs that explicitly state alligators could be in the water. We have them all over the place in Houston.

Cyia said:

The four that have been caught, along with any others, including the one that took the boy, are scheduled for euthanasia.

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That makes me sad for some, possibly irrational, reason. I agree with killing the one they believe took the boy, not out of vengeance, but for practical reasons (for the coroner, returning the remains to the family, etc.). I know they're not endangered, but I wonder why they couldn't just be relocated away from Disney. Are they worried about spreading diseases, or overpopulation in reserves, or something?

Albedo said:

That makes me sad for some, possibly irrational, reason. I agree with killing the one they believe took the boy, not out of vengeance, but for practical reasons (for the coroner, returning the remains to the family, etc.). I know they're not endangered, but I wonder why they couldn't just be relocated away from Disney. Are they worried about spreading diseases, or overpopulation in reserves, or something?

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The report I saw said they're looking for evidence of which one took the boy.

Albedo said:

That makes me sad for some, possibly irrational, reason. I agree with killing the one they believe took the boy, not out of vengeance, but for practical reasons (for the coroner, returning the remains to the family, etc.). I know they're not endangered, but I wonder why they couldn't just be relocated away from Disney. Are they worried about spreading diseases, or overpopulation in reserves, or something?

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The four alligators have already been killed. They won't know which one it is until they are able to check their stomachs.

regdog said:

...but I doubt it would have really made that significant a dent in Disney's bottom line, especially given how much there is to do at Disney away from the lagoon areas.

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Any dent is significant. That's how Disney operates, how it has been operating for a long, long time.

In regards to the bottom line, take into consideration that the main way to reach The Magic Kingdom is by boat, across that lagoon. There's no parking lot at Disney World. It was designed that way on purpose to keep the "ugliness" out of sight. If you stay on property, you park at your hotel. If you come in from another hotel, then you park at the "transportation center."

From the hotels, you either catch the monorail, if you're at a monorail hotel, or you hop a bus from one of the outlying areas, or you take a boat.

From the transportation center, you can either catch the monorail, or - more popularly - you and a few hundred other people board a multi-level paddle boat and cross that way.

The hotel boats are small, some are tugboats. The ones in the EPCOT area are fully glassed in, but at The Magic Kingdom, you're close enough to the water to drag your fingers in it - which people do, until the captains tell them to knock it off.

In general, people on vacation, especially expensive vacations, don't like being told they can't do something that they want to do.

As Cyia stated, Disney does not have signs warning of alligators. I anticipate that may change after this incident. But they also don't have signs saying "Beware of poisonous snakes," even though children have been bitten by them at Disney.

Most hotels, parks, and populated areas around water here do not have signs warning people of alligators, simply because there would have to be signs around every pond and puddle in the state. It would be like going to Arizona and expecting the rocks to have a "Beware of Rattlesnakes" signs next to them.

However, this tragedy may very well cause Disney to increase visitor awareness of the existence of dangerous wildlife. We should probably all be surprised and thankful that this hasn't happened on Disney before now, considering how many people visit each year, many of them oblivious to the dangers that lurk just below the water's surface.

I can remember standing on that spot with my then-4-year-old, and yeah, shudder. We didn't get anywhere near the water itself because yeah, Florida. Apparently there's a brain-eating amoeba in the water as well, which sounds like a hoax, but near as I can tell, isn't. There have been a few deaths from that over the years as well.

I can't even imagine what this family is going through

Beachgirl said:

Most hotels, parks, and populated areas around water here do not have signs warning people of alligators, simply because there would have to be signs around every pond and puddle in the state. It would be like going to Arizona and expecting the rocks to have a "Beware of Rattlesnakes" signs next to them.

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Disagree. All of Arizona is not a theme park that caters to families and children from all over the world, who come there assuming the entire environment is "Disney," and is absolutely safe and tightly controlled. This is why people are willing to pay the big bucks it costs to be there.

It may be somewhat unreasonable to think Disney can do this, but it is the image Disney seeks to project, imo.

I would imagine that the company will be installing some sort of barrier in the near future. Either something like a short wall or fence to indicate the boundary where people are allowed to go, or something under the water, in the shallows that would discourage a gator from climbing out in public areas - like a textured surface that would be uncomfortable for them to shimmy over.

It's actually kind of disturbing to see how readily parents in the parks and on hotel grounds encourage their kids to interact with the wildlife (and there are copious signs telling people NOT to do that) by feeding or petting them. Most of these are "woodland" animals, but the snakes, lizards, etc. are everywhere. (Take a walk through Coronado Springs and try to count the lizards -- yeesh!)

Like someone said upthread, it really is a bubble effect. All some parents see is their little Snow White and a convenient "Disney" animal, so of course it's tame or trained, right? and they encourage Snow to approach so they can get a picture.

It's scary.

Rabbits can bite. Squirrels can bite. Lizards and snakes can be toxic. (a grandmother died like 2 months ago when a tree-based snake rolled off its branch onto her at the Animal Kingdom) The cats at Disney are famously feral and used for rodent control.

regdog said:

Ever seen the jackasses who sit their kids near or even on seals, elephant seals and sea lions to take their pictures?

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And alligators - no joke. It's a thing in the Everglades, now, even though the game wardens try to stop it. They're deceptively chill animals 90% of the time, and they have zero fear of humans. Too many people mistake that calm for an indication of being tamed.