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Chapter 4: The Crocodilians: How to Catch an Alligator in One Uneasy Lesson
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CHAPTER 4 The Crocodilians: How to Catch an Alligator in One Uneasy Lesson ''you know," I said with seeming casualness, "we could run across an alligator at- Steed Pond." "Oh yeah," said Morton, suspicion creeping into his voice. Apparently his first day as my technician at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory was turning out differently than he had expected . Most technicians wear white lab coats, sit on tall stools, and write on clipboards. Here he sat bouncing down a dirt road in an old pickup truck, wearing a pair of muddy hip boots, and carrying a plastic sack full offish heads. The fish were to be used to rebait turtle traps as part of my research program. "What then?" he asked, almost antagonistically. I looked at him disapprovingly. He began to shrug his shoulders and rephrase. "Well, I mean, what are we going to do if we find one?" I answered with a touch of incredulity. "We're going to catch and measure it. Research, you know. Besides," I added, "it would be the first one I've ever seen in the wild." "Oh," said Morton. He turned to stare out the window. Morton obviously did not wish to pursue a discussion on the justification for catching and measuring an alligator, even if it were your first one. I stopped the Dodge pickup at a pullover about fifty yards from Steed Pond. We left our shirts in the truck and carried the fish heads with us down the brier-lined path. When we stood above the muddy bank that sloped steeply down to the water, I surveyed the lake. "Hey, I thought a trap was set right along here," I motioned downward with a hand wave. "In fact, I remember holding on to this stump to get out of the water. It looks like something pulled the trap away from shore, out toward the middle." How to Catch an Alligator • 55 "Yeah," said Morton, with a concerned glance toward me. ''I'll go get it. You check and rebait the one over there near the shore." I held on to the stump and slid down the muddy slope. The water in Steed Pond is relatively clear and less than knee deep for the most part. But the loose silt bottom is generally at least a foot thick and walking in the pond is like wading in a huge bowl of oatmeal with a topping of milk. As I slogged through the muck toward the displaced trap, Morton moved along shore toward the other one. My feet kicked up brown, swirling clouds in the clear water as they moved beneath the layer of silt. Steed Pond contains no logs or other debris so I was not really concerned about stumbling. I turned to watch Morton as I walked along. He lifted the net trap out of the water and I saw two large turtles. I yelled to ask what kind they were. His answer was obliterated by my second yell as I fell over a large log that I knew should not be there. "It's an alligator!" I remarked at the top of my lungs. And, in a wide-awake nightmare, I could not pick up my feet to run. When I jerked upward with one foot the other one went deep into the mud. I prepared myself, as best one can, to be devoured, forgetting for the moment that I could leave in the same fashion as I had gotten there. But, upon reconsideration, I did not need to leave, for the big animal was apparently afraid of me. A strange courage came over me as the alligator began to swim slowly away. Suddenly, I wanted it to stay. Like most herpetologists I had always wanted to catch the king ofAmerican reptiles. At last I was face to face with my first one, and I did not want it to escape. "Hey, Morton, he's moved away but he's just burying under the silt layer where he thinks I can't see him. Let's catch him. Run back and get that bunch of nylon rope in the back of the truck. We can lasso him." Morton left the sack of fish heads on the bank and disappeared into the brush. I turned to watch the big layer ofsilt that thought it was invisible, as it lay completely motionless on the bottom. Morton returned, breathless. He began wadding the tangled rope into a ball to throw. "Hey," I...