Fishing In WestPort’s Storm Water Retention Ponds
Is A Dangerous Idea
A young boy, who was fishing in WestPort’s Pond 9 this week, wound up hooking a small alligator. A neighbor observed the boy struggling at length to get the hooks out of the gator’s snout, and called the Leland Police, who came and cut the fishing line. The gator, who was only about eighteen inches long, probably posed no significant threat to the boy.
However, as the gator specialist who made a presentation to the community two weeks ago noted, small gators are usually very young and generally still under the protection of their mothers. If the mother gator had been in the vicinity, she might have come out of the pond to defend her baby and attacked the boy.
The young boy’s experience serves as a warning to WestPort residents and those of adjacent communities about the danger of fishing in the retention ponds. Parents should warn their children not to fish in the ponds; what they catch may be more than they can handle.
