Three warnings.
Then he fed Bubba again.
FWC put Bubba down.
In 2017, a Brevard County, Florida man had been hand-feeding a 10-foot alligator locals called “Bubba” at a retention pond. Feeding alligators is illegal under Florida Statute 372.667 — because it conditions them to associate humans with food. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission warned him three separate times to stop. On the fourth encounter, Bubba took his right hand. FWC was then required to euthanize the alligator. Three warnings. One lost hand. One dead alligator. The law existed for exactly this reason.
Florida Statute 372.667. It is not ambiguous.
Florida Statute 372.667 prohibits feeding alligators and crocodilians. It is a second-degree misdemeanor. The statute exists because the behavioral science behind it is straightforward and well-documented: when a wild alligator is repeatedly fed by a human, it learns to associate humans with food. The animal’s natural wariness of humans — its primary safety mechanism from the human perspective — disappears. It begins approaching people. It expects food. When it does not receive food, it may lunge for it.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission enforces this statute and runs the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program (SNAP), which responds to alligator complaints and removes animals that have become dangerous. An alligator that has been habituated to humans through feeding cannot be safely relocated — the conditioning follows the animal. FWC’s only option for such an animal, after an attack, is euthanasia.
FWC came back. Three times. He did not stop.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission does not typically issue three warnings before an enforcement action. The fact that they did reflects either a policy of documented escalation before prosecution or officers who were giving a citizen every opportunity to comply without a criminal charge. Either way, three separate encounters were documented. Three times, he was told: stop feeding the alligator. Three times, he did not stop.
By the time of the third warning, Bubba had been hand-fed enough times to have lost his natural wariness. FWC had told the man explicitly what the consequence would be if the feeding continued: the alligator would need to be removed or destroyed. The man was not operating without information. He had been told the outcome. He fed Bubba again.
Bubba did not break the law. Bubba was the victim.
This is important to state plainly: Bubba, the alligator, did nothing wrong in any meaningful sense. He was a wild animal in a Florida retention pond. He was fed by a human, repeatedly, until his behavior changed in exactly the way wildlife biology predicts it will change. He attacked when he expected food and did not receive it — the behavior the statute is written to prevent.
FWC was then required to euthanize him. Not because Bubba was malicious. Because he had been conditioned, through illegal feeding, into an animal that could no longer safely coexist with humans — and because FWC has no facility to retrain or safely relocate a habituated alligator that has attacked a person. The man’s decision to keep feeding Bubba after three warnings did not only cost him his right hand. It cost Bubba his life.
“Feeding alligators is dangerous and illegal. Once an alligator loses its natural wariness of humans, it becomes a danger to everyone in the area — and the outcome for that animal is removal and euthanasia.”
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission — Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program guidance