 |  | ||||
|
Sunday, October 6, 2002 Plea to visitors: Please don't take our carnivorous reptilesFOOTNOTE | By Mark Lane Despite the smiling face at the front desk and the pronouncements of the nearest chamber of commerce, any tourist town is at heart ambivalent about its guests. They drive around lost. They make fun of the way we talk. And when they eat out, they take all the pink packets of sweetener from the table. And they keep trying to steal our carnivorous reptiles. Only last week police charged a North Carolina man with making off with an alligator that had been minding its own business in a lagoon of the Congo River miniature golf course. As The News-Journal's able wildlife, environment and min iature-golf-related crime writer Dinah Voyles Pulver reported, Daytona Beach Shores officers said they apprehended Derrick Cooper, 22, of North Carolina, in the parking lot of his hotel Monday. The police report said he was found in the singularly incriminating — not to mention awkward — act of holding the 'gator's mouth closed. Something that legally or illegally done — clearly falls under the heading "don't try this at home." He was charged with alligator poaching and petty theft, according to police. Why does this sort of thing appear in a newspaper? Alligator grabs tourist isn't news. Tourist grabs alligator? That's news. The Congo River is an African-themed course in Daytona Beach Shores. It has lots of utility poles lashed together with ropes, paintings of shields and spears, and a zebra-striped plane fuselage sitting out back. Very colorful. Its sign out front says it all: BEST MINI GOLF - IN DAYTONA - LIVE GATOR This is the second time the sign's closing line attracted the wrong element. Only last year, two tourists were arrested after alligatornapping one of the resident reptiles and letting it loose in a motel pool. Folks, this is a bad idea. Bad for the alligator. Bad for the people involved in the transportation. Bad for the pool-boy. Next time someone says to you: "Hey, let's go get a 'gator and set it loose in the pool!" just say "no." Consider this a public service announcement. Friends don't let friends bring alligators back their motel. The persistence of senseless 'gator-related tourist crime illustrates something most observers have long suspected about Florida tourism. People don't come here despite the weird stories they've heard about dangerous wildlife and Nature Run Amok. People come here because of the weird stories they've heard about dangerous wildlife and Nature Run Amok. Those shark stories everyone worries about? Don't worry. They sell T-shirts. They sell the area. Alligator-eats-poodle stories? Too bad for Fluffy, but in the aggregate, good for the local economy. And if the intrepid traveler does not encounter sharks, poisonous snakes, bears or alligators? Well, he'll just go out and snatch one himself if he has to. Heck, you think we went all this way just to get stinkin' T-shirts? So remember this next time you worry that maybe our tourism economy suffers because of press accounts of shark attacks, killer bees, lightning strikes, alligator attacks, swamp beast sightings, hurricanes or giant sinkholes eating the interstate. You can't buy publicity like this. It encourages extreme tourism. The thing that really threatens to kill tourism is that we're threatening to become too much like everywhere else. That's what I lie awake worrying about at night. At least when I'm not hearing odd, loud sounds in the bushes out back. |
Copyright © 2009 NIE WORLD (www.nieworld.com). All content copyrighted and may not be republished without permission. The News-Journal has no control over and is not responsible for content on other Web sites. Privacy Policy. |