Will ‘Vinny’ the gator live or die? A Bluffton community worries about the animal’s fate

A Bluffton alligator nicknamed “Vinny” will soon be relocated — and could end up being euthanized — even though it has, apparently, posed no threat to people living nearby.

Community members in the Villas at Old South are upset after recently learning that a wheelchair-bound resident feels threatened by the animal and is demanding its removal.

“There’s only one man complaining out of a community of hundreds,” Carrie Quinn, a Villas resident, said Monday morning. “The big fear is they’re going to have to put Vinny to sleep.”

Villas property manager Mark Schaeffer confirmed that only one resident has complained about the alligator, which lives in a pond on the golf course. He said the community is home to 200-250 residents.

“In a perfect world, I would like the resident to realize that the alligator is not a threat, and that Vinny’s life is spared and he’s successfully relocated,” said Schaeffer, who took over management of the Villas on July 1.

But Schaeffer is “erring on the side of human safety,” he said — and trying to minimize any liability the Villas’ homeowners association might incur in the event Vinny attacks someone. That means if on-the-premises relocation fails, Vinny might have to be removed, and, by law, killed.

That prospect is troubling to many residents, property managers and wildlife experts alike: it sheds light on how such decisions are made, and how alligators can fall prey to human perceptions.

“I think in most cases it’s a perception that’s way overwrought,” said Dean Harrigal, a wildlife biologist for S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

The rare but eye-catching news headlines of alligator attacks combine with entertainment portrayals of the animals — the History Channel’s “Swamp People,” for example — to create the dangerous, “beastly aura” that alligators have to bear, said Harrigal, who has been S.C. DNR’s nuisance alligator coordinator since 1992.

The result? Alligators get a bad reputation, and some people are threatened by the mere presence of them.

In cases like the one at the Villas, one worried person can wield a lot of power.

“It pisses me off,” said Critter Management’s Vince “Kiki” Maffo. “Because (Vinny) is not a bad gator.”

Maffo examined Vinny about a month ago, he said, looking for signs that the animal was a “trouble gator.” He found Vinny to a be a “good gator,” the kind that, seeing humans walk its way, slinks into the water to hide. The animal did not show signs of aggression, Maffo said, and he does not consider the animal a nuisance.

He and coworkers will attempt to relocate Vinny around 10 a.m. Tuesday, he said. If relocation fails — and Maffo thinks it will, that Vinny will return to his current pond — removal is likely the only option left. Since that would involve euthanizing the animal, Maffo doesn’t know if his company will perform the removal.

S.C. DNR allows alligators to be relocated “within the confines of the premises,” Harrigal said. Ultimately, though, the animal’s fate is in the hands of the Villas property managers — the community is one of more than 50 from Colleton County south that are part of S.C. DNR’s program to deal with problem gators and, as such, have permission to remove the animals. And while DNR offers guidelines to program participants to help them identify and classify nuisance animals, those decisions are left to the individual communities.

“There are properties in our program where if a gator gets to 9 feet, they’re going to (remove and euthanize) him,” Harrigal said, explaining how different communities have different standards for classifying and dealing with the animals. “You could have five different communities and they’re going have five different sets of criteria” for addressing nuisance alligators, he said.

When asked Monday if the Villas had a policy to address alligator complaints, Schaeffer said, “We don’t, to the best of my knowledge,” and said he’d work with the community’s board of directors to create one.

Schaeffer, who’s received numerous calls from people worried about Vinny’s fate, said his staff and Maffo have tried to talk to the resident who feels threatened, but have not had success. Quinn said some of her neighbors knocked on the man’s door over the weekend to try to meet with him, but the man was either not home or didn’t answer the door. A knock on that same door by a newspaper reporter Monday went unanswered.

The complainant, community members said, is in a wheelchair, which might factor into his concerns about Vinny.

Quinn is sympathetic to that.

“I have a disability,” she said Monday as she stood near the pond as Vinny drifted by. “I walk with a cane.”

Lupus has damaged her joints, she said — she knows could never outrun an alligator.

Still, she thinks Vinny has a right to his home.

“We live in South Carolina,” she said. “We’re going to have gators.

“We’re in their territory.”

This story was originally published July 31, 2017 at 4:33 PM with the headline "Will ‘Vinny’ the gator live or die? A Bluffton community worries about the animal’s fate."