Alligators On The Move Due To Drought, Mating Season

The drought in Central Florida is starting to have some profound effects. Wildfires have been sweeping across the area, but all the dry weather may also be putting people dangerously close to Florida's alligators.

The problem is all the alligators who live in lakes and ponds are now on the move looking for mates and more water.

Friday was another busy morning for alligator trapper Jimmy Douglas, Jr. He's had to pick up or catch a gator almost every single day this week.

"With our ponds drying up, the gators have got to have water so they are crawling all over to find water," Douglas said.

Email News Sign-Up Multiple Choices - Auto sign-up (LEFT ALIGN) GET WFTV NEWS HEADLINES BY EMAIL 9 a.m. Headlines Noon Headlines 4 p.m. Headlines News of the Strange Breaking News Alerts Alligators do the most crawling early in the morning or late at night. Before dawn, Friday, a driver found a gator twitching along the side of a road in Winter Garden. It had been hit by a car.

Thursday, several people ran over a gator in Winter Park.

"Somebody pulled him over on the side road and his tail was going crazy. I looked at it. I didn't want to get next to it," said eyewitness Anthony Padilla.

May is the peak of the alligator mating season. Florida's Fish and Wildlife Commission said this is the time of year when it receive the most gator complaints and, if the dry weather continues, there could be a lot more calls coming in than usual.

Douglas said drivers should watch out.

"I'm sure two, three, six times a day, between all of us in the state, we are picking up road kill gators," he said.

There haven't been any gator attacks on people yet this year, but last May three people were killed in one week. That was unusual, but it gives people near drying lakes and ponds an uneasy feeling.

"It's scary. I don't like gators and I don't like snakes. Seeing it come here, that's scary," said eyewitness Dana Finney.

Trappers said, if a gator gets hurt, it could be more dangerous. It's less likely to run away and it's very angry.