A woman in Florida heard a pounding on her front door. She didn’t expect fighting gators
A Fort Myers homeowner has a message to other Floridians who hear a loud bang on their front doors.
Look first before you open.
As Susan and Joe Geshel, found out, sometimes the person pounding on your front door isn’t a person at all.
But rather two alligators fighting a turf war during mating season.
On May 26, Susan Geshel was startled to hear a pounding on the front door of her home at 6:45 a.m. May 26, the Fort Myers News-Press reported.
Geshel looked out the window, with her phone camera in hand, and spotted the source of the noise. Two gators, about seven feet long, were near the front of her house. One saunters by on a path, seemingly casual, oblivious to the open snout of another gator to its side.
Then the silent video is no longer silent. The gator with the open mouth clamps down on the other.
The gators are fighting
“Joe, they’re fighting. They’re fighting. Oh my God, they are fighting outside the door,” she calls out to her husband as you see the pinned gator’s tail swishing.
Geshel told one of her neighbors on her Facebook post that she called her homeowner association’s security and they came out and called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But by that point, one of the gators made its way toward a neighbor’s house, out of view, and the other into a nearby pond across the street, she believes.
Geshel jokes to another neighbor who inquired as to whether this is a “gator’s idea of rough sex?” and they thay are “disregarding all social distancing requests,” she wrote.
Mating season peaks in May and June, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says.
‘Be vigilant’ in Florida
But in seriousness, Geshel said she wants the video to be seen and shared because it “may remind others to be more vigilant,” she said. Look first. Gators might be out there in Florida.
“I was scared when I saw the nose of the alligator’s snout smashed against my front door window pane as the tail was pounding on our front door,” Geshel told her neighbors on the Facebook post.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says gators can be in any body of water in the state.
If you are concerned about nuisance gators, don’t feed them or approach. Call the Nuisance Alligator Hotline at 866-392-4286. The FWC will dispatch one of its contracted nuisance alligator trappers.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 6:06 AM.
