The last time there was a fatal attack by an alligator in Florida, it was 2007, when a 9-foot alligator seized an alleged car burglar named Justo Padron when jumped into a pond after running from a casino in Western Miami-Dade County. The previous record was held between the years of 1979 and 1983.
"I think it's just luck," said Lindsey Hord, coordinator of the nuisance alligator program for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "It's probably just a matter of time." Officials don’t expect the non-death record to go on forever, likely because two attacks happened in 2012 that could have become fatalities.
In 2006, there was a horrific series of attacks in which three people died in less a week, which led many Florida residents to wonder if the increase in population and expanding housing developments would lead to a new era of killings by alligators.
After these attacks, the number of gators killed by hunters rose, with 6,709 killed on state lands. The number of trapper-killings hit a record of 11,664 alligators. With the increase in alligator killings by officials and hunters, the number of attacks and complaints have decreased.
Classified as an endangered species in 1967, the alligator rebounded in the 1970s, and the state reinstated hunting in 1988. Today, the agency estimates there are more than 1.3 million alligators in Florida.
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