Uh, rude.
A gator with a serious case of the munchies pulled a Yogi Bear on a Florida couple, rolling in on their picnic date and eating all their food, reports WGFL-TV, a CBS affiliate in Gainesville.
Taylor Forte and fiancé Trevor Walters were enjoying a waterside date last week at Lake Alice when the rowdy reptile ruined the mood. Forte had packed the picnic as a sendoff before Walters leaves for the Marines.
“He swims up to the bank and just looks us dead in the eyes and then he immediately just sprints up onto the beach,” Walters told the TV station of the intruder.
The shocked couple ran and filmed the gator devouring their feast from a safe distance.
“He annihilated an entire block of cheese. Gobbled it down, lickety-split. The salami didn’t stand a chance,” Walters said.
The animal’s pig-out didn’t end there. It also consumed half a watermelon, a pound of grapes and an entire bowl of guacamole. Then it attempted to eat the bowl.
Walters said he eventually scared away the gator by making himself appear bigger and making a lot of noise ― a tactic he called a “bear scare.”
Gators in Florida seem riled up lately. Last week, an 11-foot gator broke into a woman’s kitchen in Clearwater and smashed bottles of red wine.
Although gator break-in stories can be amusing, they often end in bad news for the animal.
Karen Parker of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said that the Gainesville picnic gator’s behavior is worrisome.
“Unfortunately it sounds like that gator has been fed previously and has lost its wariness of people and is beginning to associate people with food,” Parker told WGFL.
She said that when a gator becomes more than a nuisance and begins to charge people, it becomes a public safety issue and the animal needs to be removed.
So, try not to feed gators, folks.