Why is terrible treatment of Hilton Head alligator legal? Fix it now | Opinion
There ought to be a law.
In fact, there could be a law, and maybe there is a law.
But none of that matters right now. None of it worked this week when the whole world saw the inhumane treatment of a giant alligator on Hilton Head Island.
Its thousand-pound body was pulled from a lagoon at the Legendary Golf mini-golf attraction on William Hilton Parkway. It looked like a tug-of-war in the videos that poured out from a pretty large crowd.
After the 12 1/2-foot gator was taped and bound by Critter Management personnel under the guidance of 19-year-old Joey Maffo, people from the crowd were allowed to sit on it. Small children were placed on the gator’s back by adults. Many pictures were taken.
It was a disgrace, pure and simple.
It’s not the worst disgrace on earth.
On a day that the rest of America was blowing up like it was 1968 due to another police killing, Hilton Head marched with blow-up alligator pool toys to protest the treatment of this massive beast.
Regardless, the Hilton Head fiasco will live ad infinitum on the internet as a pock mark on a community that prides itself on wildlife and environmental protection.
And the S.C. Department of Natural Resources says the capture of the alligator and its subsequent euthanization was done legally.
South Carolina needs to fix that - now.
SCDNR biologist
Both SCDNR and the Hilton Head town manager said quickly that they do not condone the manner in which the animal was treated.
“The capture and handling of alligators should be left to experienced professionals, and allowing untrained people to interact with an alligator is irresponsible and puts those people at risk,” SCDNR alligator biologist Morgan Hart said in a statement.
“Agents contracted by SCDNR are not allowed to involve untrained members of the public in the capture or handling of alligators.”
So why did this “sideshow” happen?
But the bottom line does not change.
South Carolina failed to protect this animal, and it failed to protect the crowd of people around it.
State senate
Nobody was hurt, but the state’s alligator-capture system did not work.
A good start to fixing it already exists.
State Sen. Greg Hembree, a Myrtle Beach Republican and former solicitor, sponsored a bill in January that would add teeth to the state law on the capture and removal of alligators.
It also would mandate nonlethal removal options.
That has been an issue for professional alligator wranglers, including Critter Management founder Joe Maffo. He was punished in 2014 after relocating “Big Al” on Hilton Head rather than putting him down.
Hembree told WBTW News13 in February that not every captured gator needs to be killed, which was the fate of the sideshow gator this week.
“There are those animals, I mean, that can create a danger to, you know, people, or their property or their pets, things like that, but there are a lot of these animals that ... they’re not dangerous,” Hembree told the television station.
Under his bill, SCDNR would continue to “designate alligator control agents who demonstrate by training and experience that they possess the skills to remove alligators. “
But the proposal would amend current state law to say SCDNR “shall require (rather than ‘may require’) demonstrations of skill and require (rather than ‘or require’) periodic training.”
And it adds this to existing law:
“The department shall establish specific methods of humane capture, removal, disposal, and disposition of alligator parts, which must include nonlethal removal options.
“The department must terminate a designated alligator control agent immediately after the department learns of a violation of a state law or regulation.”
We know from the Hilton Head meltdown that more mandatory and more frequent training is needed.
And that should happen no matter who an “alligator control agent” contracts with or is hired or permitted by.
It should not take state law to mandate tighter control and oversight of alligator captures. Regulations could handle it, and perhaps they already do. But we’re told the capture of an alligator that includes the spectacle of tourists “riding it” was done legally.
SCDNR needs to own it, and fix it.
Hembree’s law, now in a Senate subcommittee, would be a good start.
