Houston 101: A Rare, Perhaps Unique Tale of a Human Killed by a Texas Alligator
Over the weekend I took my son out to Brazos Bend State Park. That's him in the foreground of the photo after the jump, sitting on an embankment about ten feet away -- and four feet above -- an alligator that looked to be about ten feet long.
Brazos Bend is a surreal place. The horseshoe lakes, palmetto frond-dotted sloughs, stalking ibises and herons, and lazy-moving creeks and big Brazos itself take you back to what feels like dinosaur times, and that's before you even come across your first gator.
We saw about half a dozen along a heavily-traveled trail near one of the lakes. These ranged in size from about two feet to a fairly large one that was lurking underneath one of the observation decks that jutted out over the lake. Hikers and gators coexist casually -- most people are transfixed by their first couple of gators, but it gets fairly humdrum after you take in three or four. (Except when you stray from the trails and venture along the banks of Big Creek and come across a big one mano a mano, as my son and I did. Not that we condone that action, of course.)
After all, these aren't usually the most dynamic animals in the world. If you were to make a pie chart of a gator's life, the slice that denoted "laying around with eyes half closed barely breathing" would be by far the largest.
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