Two alligators — one12-foot long, the other 13-foot — have been removed from a Seminole County river and euthanized after the death of an Orlando woman Sunday, June 28, according to wildlife officials.
At a press conference in Titusville on June 29, Lt. Grant Eller with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said that American alligators can be present in any body of water in Florida at any time and always present a potential risk to swimmers, especially during the summer mating season when the animals can exhibit more aggressive behaviors than usual. The 31-year-old woman was not identified while FWC works to contact her family members. According to officers, the woman was swimming in the Econlockhatchee River near the Barr Street Trailhead in the Little Big Econ State Forest on Sunday.
The woman had been hiking in the area with friends when they decided to swim in around three feet of water.
Her boyfriend was able to retrieve her from the alligator after she received bite wounds on both arms but she died as a result of her injuries while being transported to an area hospital around 1:30 p.m.
In traumatic 911 audio, the woman’s companions can be heard telling dispatchers that she was losing “a lot of blood” following the incident. The victim can also be heard in the background suffering extreme pain as a result of her injuries.
The caller also tells the 911 dispatcher that both of the woman’s arms were “basically off” as a result of the attack. “It’s horrible, severe,” the caller says. Eller said the two gators FWC harvested were taken from the exact area where the bite occurred. The agency will continue to monitor for other candidate animals in the water nearby.
“We’ve done DNA analysis on the two alligators that have been harvested and we’ll be taking those to our Gainesville lab and that’ll help us determine whether the animal in question is one of the ones we harvested,” Eller said.
“The 13-footer was harvested exactly at the incident scene and the 12-footer was harvested just a short distance from the scene,” Eller said.
“Based off witness statements, all we had at the time was a very large alligator,” Eller said, adding that both gators matched the descriptions given to FWC officials.
DNA analysis from the Gainesville lab could take several days and FWC is working to streamline the process.
Lt. Chad Weber with FWC emphasized at the press conference that any freshwater body in the state of Florida can contain alligators.
“It didn’t seem like they were doing anything malicious to the gator,” Weber said. He cited drought conditions and lower water levels as contributing factors in the attack.
“It could be any number of things. The low water levels we have, the end of mating seasons, territorial behavior,” Weber said. “It’s impossible to speculate about what the exact reason was.”
Alligator attacks in Florida remain rare even as the previously endangered species has seen its total population climb to around 1.3 million in the state. Records from FWC show there have been only 32 fatal alligator attacks out of 500 attacks total since 1948. Last year saw two alligator-related fatalities.
Tyler Vazquez is the Growth and Development Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Vazquez at 321-480-0854 or tvazquez@floridatoday.com. X: @tyler_vazquez.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Two gators removed after fatal Florida attack of 31-year-old woman
Reporting by Tyler Vazquez, Florida Today / Florida Today
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By Tyler Vazquez, Florida Today | USA TODAY Network
