An 80-year-old woman has been killed after she was attacked by two alligators after falling into a pond at a US golf course.
The incident happened at the Boca Royale Golf and Country Club near the victim’s home in Englewood, Florida, on Friday night. The woman, who has not been named, was pronounced dead at the scene. A statement from the local sheriff’s office said: “Two alligators were observed near the victim and ultimately grabbed her while in the water.”
Although an official cause of death has not yet been confirmed, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) sent a specialised trapper to the scene of the incident, where two alligators – one nine-feet long and the other nearly eight-feet long – were removed from the pond and euthanised.
The death is the third in the US as a result of alligator attacks this year, following the discovery of a man’s body in a lake in Largo, Florida in May and another male killed after being dragged into a pond in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina last month.
Despite the latest incident, the FWC states that fatal alligator attacks are rare in Florida. The organisation says there are an average of eight unprovoked alligator attacks per year requiring medical attention. Between 1948 and 2021, Florida saw 442 unprovoked alligator attacks, resulting in 26 deaths.
The FWC estimates there are around 1.3 million of the reptiles in Florida and that they can be found in almost all fresh and brackish water bodies, and occasionally salt water. It also points out that alligators become more active as temperatures rise and stresses that people should not swim in rivers and lakes at either dawn or dusk.
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