{"id":8969,"date":"2017-08-29T05:45:10","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T13:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/08\/29\/news-2742\/"},"modified":"2017-08-29T05:45:10","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T13:45:10","slug":"news-2742","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/08\/29\/news-2742\/","title":{"rendered":"A Viral Hurricane Harvey Tweet Is Giving Gators a Bad Reputation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/articles\/59a483530a98e95ee5230646\/lede\/1503954342697-229248340_b981dde2a7_o.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Credit to Author: Claire  Downs| Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Friday afternoon, just hours before tropical storm Harvey made landfall in the coastal city of Rockport, Texans began preparing for the hurricane&#8217;s inevitable devastation. Warnings of flooding, downed electrical wires, destroyed property, and issues threatening public safety dominated social media. But it wasn&#8217;t until a viral tweet, posted by the Fort Bend County Sheriff&#8217;s Office, reminded the internet that Texans should also be wary of displaced alligators. <\/p>\n<div style=\"max-width: 550px;\" data-iframely-id=\"Th3cgg3\" class=\"article__embed article__embed--iframely\">\n<div style=\"left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 100%;\" data-iframely-smart-iframe=\"true\"><iframe  src= width=\"100%\" height=\"420\" frameborder=\"0\" ><\/iframe> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The photos, credited to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/txgatorsquad?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\">@txgatorsquad<\/a>, gave way to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/world-news\/hurricane-harvey-forces-alligators-streets-11058397#ICID=sharebar_twitter\" target=\"_blank\">sensational reports<\/a> and thousands of responses, many of which assumed the gator displacement was happening in real-time. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/txgatorsquad?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\">@Txgatorsquad<\/a> (run by Gator Chris and Gator Christy) pounced on the opportunity to disseminate gator safety information by posting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/news\/276096826-story\" target=\"_blank\">a video<\/a> featuring &#8220;Halo the Edu-gator&#8221; to their Facebook page. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pg\/txgatorsquad\/about\/?ref=page_internal\" target=\"_blank\">Gators Chris and Christy<\/a> are &#8220;licensed nuisance control hunters&#8221; who largely use the account to share gator memes, sell t-shirts, and post pics of terrifying encounters with local reptiles. <\/p>\n<div data-iframely-id=\"51NagvZ\" class=\"article__embed article__embed--iframely\">\n<div style=\"left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;\" data-iframely-smart-iframe=\"true\"><iframe  src= width=\"100%\" height=\"420\" frameborder=\"0\" ><\/iframe> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"article__blockquote\"><b> Read more:<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/wnjxbz\/here-is-an-alligator-trying-to-eat-a-drone\">Here Is an Alligator Trying to Eat a Drone<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>I contacted the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to learn about the possibility of alligator attacks during Harvey. I was connected with Dr. Jonathan Warner, the head of the area&#8217;s Alligator Program, which includes farming, hunting, nuisance, education research and outreach. Warner, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Jonathan_Warner7\" target=\"_blank\">who spent a decade researching crocodiles in Africa<\/a> and says he has &#8220;the best job in the world,&#8221; expects his phone will ring a lot post-Harvey.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The bulk of calls we&#8217;re expecting will be over the next week as the rivers rise and the storm surges. We&#8217;re expecting an uptick in activity,&#8221; Warner told me. <\/p>\n<p>But, the herpetologist doesn&#8217;t seem too worried. &#8220;Not every alligator that comes up in a flood is a nuisance alligator,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s just doing its thing when flooding occurs. When the water recedes they&#8217;ll leave on their own accord. They&#8217;re not gonna hang around there in most cases after the flooding.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>When I mentioned Gator Chris, Warner acknowledged that Chris was one of his alligator nuisance permittees. &#8220;I have about 65 people who are specially trained and permitted by our department to capture problem alligators in the state of Texas,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;They have to go through a special handling course and a written course.&#8221; As for the Fort Bend County Sheriff&#8217;s Office viral post (22K likes, 17K retweets as of this writing), Warner expressed disappointment. &#8220;We have a strict policy against filming captures, sharing them, and putting them on social media. Alligators have a bad enough reputation and we don&#8217;t need to promote captures with their jaws snapping, promoting the image that alligators are bad and dangerous.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Because gator captures require a nuisance permittee&#8217;s concentration and speed, Warner emphasized the absurdity of recording them. &#8220;We want people to go in, do their job, have a good relationship with their communities and avoid the hype. It&#8217;s not something we allow, like, on Facebook Live or something. God forbid if someone were to get bitten on camera, that would be a huge PR disaster for us. It reflects badly on us as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. It&#8217;s also about dignity and respect for the animal.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the hype has already set in around the internet. Some people are claiming <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/helenhtran\/status\/901884973678043136\" target=\"_blank\">Gator Chris&#8217; photos are theirs<\/a>, while hoaxes like this previously <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/jp5ydp\/shark-swims-down-a-flooded-street-is-a-viral-hoax-that-wont-die?utm_source=mbtwitter\">debunked shark<\/a> have resurfaced. I spoke with Major Chad Norvell from the Fort Bend County Sheriff&#8217;s Department for a comment on the tweet&#8217;s popularity and if he felt that creating a gator frenzy by quoting Gator Chris was necessary. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We frequently have alligators moving around and we have a good relationship with Gator Squad,&#8221; Norvell said. &#8220;Education is always key: alligators are misunderstood.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Gator Chris agreed with the Sheriff&#8217;s office. &#8220;[The tweet] put alligators in people&#8217;s minds before the flood waters kicked in. It got the conversation going a little bit early and we&#8217;ve caught three or four since the hurricane started. That&#8217;s our goal: to educate people around coexistence strategies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Exaggerated reports of non-dangerous <a href=\"http:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2017\/08\/28\/woman-films-alligator-eyeballing-her-in-backyard-as-frogs-invade-home-6884514\/?ito=twitter\" target=\"_blank\">gator encounters<\/a> over the weekend have validated Warner&#8217;s fears that the media will continue to portray the usually docile American alligator as a &#8220;scary and dangerous thing.&#8221; Still, phobias were stoked when very real reports of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/gator-sanctuary-flooding_us_59a46b1be4b0446b3b859d6e\" target=\"_blank\">gator sanctuary<\/a> in Beaumont bursting at the seams threatened to &#8220;unleash&#8221; 350 reptiles if water levels continued to rise. <\/p>\n<p>Since Friday&#8217;s tweet, Gator Chris and Christy have since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/txgatorsquad\/\" target=\"_blank\">updated their Facebook page<\/a> to acknowledge that the photos they posted were not from Hurricane Harvey, but from March of this year. &#8220;It has been brought to my attention that people are using my pictures and posting them on their own social media pages trying to stir up panic in their own neighborhoods,&#8221; Christy writes. &#8220;If you see any of my pictures, please correct the person that these are old photos and they belong to Gator Squad.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>As for the hurricane, Gator Chris said, &#8220;We&#8217;ll get through it. We&#8217;re Texans.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><i> Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day<\/i> <i> <a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.club\/\" target=\"_blank\">by signing up for our newsletter.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/nee9xg\/a-viral-hurricane-harvey-tweet-is-giving-gators-a-bad-reputation\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/articles\/59a483530a98e95ee5230646\/lede\/1503954342697-229248340_b981dde2a7_o.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Credit to Author: Claire  Downs| Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Education is always key: alligators are misunderstood.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10643,13328,10378],"tags":[14199,6868,1932,997,454,434],"class_list":["post-8969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-independent","category-motherboard","category-security","tag-alligator","tag-animals","tag-social-media","tag-texas","tag-twitter","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}