Photographer Captures Footage of Gator Lunging at Him in a City Park
An alligator lunged at a photographer who was filming the beast in the same park where a man was killed.
Foster Thorbjornsen was walking when he saw the aggressive gator in Taylor Park, Seminole, Florida, lurking 20 ft from shore.
“He was the biggest alligator I have seen in the wild, about eight to 10 feet long. I stopped to take close-up pictures of him with my zoom lens, while he stared back at me with cold dark menacing eyes,” writes Thorbjornsen on Facebook
“When I turned my gaze away from him to check my camera, he quickly swam to shore and charged at me, stopping when he was almost completely out of the water about 10 feet away from me. The timing of his charge was deliberate.”
Thorbjornsen was convinced the prehistoric monster was stalking him, and a man was killed by an alligator in the same park earlier this year while searching for his frisbee in a lake.
“He waited for me to turn and look away. It was nerve-wracking and intense. But (sic) I took only a step or two back before quickly taking more shaky videos and pictures.
“I wasn’t too worried though, because there was a steep embankment and a tree between him and me. It was only afterward that I recalled reading a story about a man being killed by a large gator in this same park only two weeks ago when he foolishly entered the water to retrieve his frisbee.”
Fatal Alligator Attack in the Same Lake
A dog walker saw the body of a man floating in Taylor lake, where Thorbjornsen filmed the aggressive gator, just last month. The victim was identified as 47-year-old Sean Thomas McGuinness.
However, alligator trappers tracked down and removed an alligator from the water. The reptile was euthanized and a necropsy will be performed to determine if it was involved in the fatal attack.
The park is home to a disc golf course where flying discs are thrown into baskets. Some park regulars told WFLA it isn’t unusual to see people fishing in the water for discs that went off-course, despite the park’s warnings that suggest mortal danger could exist below the surface.
“This is a park frequented by families with small children who often go to the water’s edge. Definitely not the ideal place for a large aggressive territorial bull gator,” adds Thorbjornsen.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
