Re: [Paddlewise] Another incidence of the "amusement park syndrome"

From: Craig Jungers <crjungers_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:16:41 -0700
On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Steve Cramer <cramersec_at_charter.net>
wrote:

> If people in Florida didn't swim in lakes and rivers where alligators live,
> there would be a lot of hot dry people in Florida. People and alligators
> share water all the time in the South, and alligator attacks are pretty
> rare.


If people in Florida swam at night in canals full of gators during mating
season.... then I suspect there would be a lot fewer people in Florida.


> What if they had been partying at Daytona Beach and gone for a midnight
> swim in the ocean and gotten shark bit? Would you still shake your head and
> say "What was he thinking?"?


Yup... if there were signs around the area saying "shark infested area" and
did it at precisely the time that the sharks would be actively feeding. And
if they ignored people on shore screaming at him to get out of the water
because a shark was following him. This wasn't just a simming accident, he
did almost everything wrong. And without being drunk (they say).

The kid is now saying that it's the fault of the environmentalists for
allowing the population of alligators to rise to such a high level. Maybe
he's right. I wondered about that years ago when it became clear that
alligators could breed much faster than people had thought.



Craig
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Received on Thu Jun 26 2008 - 07:16:48 PDT

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