Every two weeks, “Zombie House Flipping” star and Hummelstown native Keith Ori writes about the notable differences between growing up in Pennsylvania and living in Florida.
Fun fact: Floridians are completely aware that they exist on a different level of the food chain than you do. Because of this, we frequently have to take wildlife into consideration when planning our day.
Yes, I know, you have giant, leaping, and not altogether bright deer which dart in front of cars like a live-action game of “Frogger,” but the deer are never at risk of eating you.
And hell, the scariest looking insect in Pa, the Flying Hellgrammite, which sounds like an Army Apache helicopter gunship when it’s flying at you, doesn’t even bite.
In Florida we have animals everywhere that will definitely kill you if given the opportunity, and others that are such a nuisance that they send people to the hospital regularly, though usually with a story that makes the trip worth it.
From Orlando, the best ocean beach we have (voted so year after year) is New Smyrna Beach. New Smyrna Beach also happens to be … the shark attack capital of the world.
The fact that the most popular beach in Central Florida is also the single spot in the entire world where you’re most likely to get bitten by a shark actually says more about other central Florida beaches that it does about New Smyrna.
All of our beaches are known for something. Daytona has motorcycles and leather clothing, not necessarily at the same time. Playalinda has geriatric nudity. The Hammocks has annoying not-rich white folks pretending to be rich for three days and two nights. And Cocoa has Crystal Meth. So by some strange default the objective risk of getting eaten by a shark is still better than any of the other options.
Plus, locals know how to manage the shark risk -- don’t get into the water at the North end of New Smyrna Beach near dusk, don’t flail around in the water like a wounded fish (harder for some than others), and maybe just don’t swim at the North end of the beach at all.
Everybody already knows this, of course, except the British tourists, but they’re easy to pick out and warn -- they’re either transparently pale or a shade of red not otherwise found in nature (depending upon how many days ago their plane landed) and wearing sneakers with black socks pulled up to their knees.
But it’s not just sharks. A general rule here is that one should assume every lake has gators in it, and we have a lot of lakes. A lot of lakes also means we have a lot of wakeboarders, but again, wakeboarders know the rules and never get bitten by alligators.
I even expect the gators figure they’re too much work, especially with guys like Adrian Apgar laying around. Apgar is a bit of a local legend. He’s your basic crack-smoking truck driver who decided to sunbathe nude on the side of a retention pond, in the middle of the night. This didn’t go well, but fortunately the police heard him screaming before he’d lost much more than his left arm and pulled him to safety, presumably with his right one. What makes him exceptional, even in Florida, is that the same thing happened to him again, 18 months later, and he still survived.
Ssharks and gators might get all the press, but we actually have a huge problem with some other animals you might not know as much about -- Green Iguanas and Rhesus Macaque monkeys.
Green Iguanas, which can grow to five feet in length (lotta tail there) are infesting South Florida and people are getting hurt, particularly in Winter. The iguanas roost in trees, but when the temperatures dip overnight in the Winter the iguanas sometimes become torpid and just drop like bags of wet cement. Yes, this is actually a thing and it’s sent a few unsuspecting folks to the hospital.
Hell, just a few weeks ago a guy was riding his bike when a Green Iguana jumped out of a hedge and landed in his front spokes, sending him over the handlebars and into the hospital. The iguana fared worse and the photo, which is exactly as crazy as you can imagine, is priceless.
Even more priceless though is the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission’s directive to citizens: “Homeowners do not need a permit to kill iguanas on their own property, and the FWC encourages homeowners to kill green iguanas on their own property whenever possible.”
It sounds like something out of Caddyshack: “Kill the gophers? We can do that. We don’t even need a reason.”
And then there’s the Rhesus Macacques. There’s about four hundred of them in the Ocala National Forest, just North of Orlando, left over from some turn of the (20th) century attraction. Rhesus Macaques aren’t dangerous, right? Normally, no, but ours are drooling with herpes-B, which can be fatal to humans.
I know what you’re thinking: “Those stupid monkeys must have been hanging out at The Villages”. Ok, well that’s what I was thinking. For those that don’t know, The Villages are an incomprehensibly large retirement community, close to the Ocala National Forest, which is also famous for its very high incidence of STDs.
But no, the macaques came by the herpes all on their own.
There’s more, too. We have Burmese Pythons running loose, Red Fire Ants, Buck Moth Caterpillars, plus the occasional King Cobra that got loose and wound up in a neighbor’s College Park garage.
So the food chain? Yeah, we’re still a few steps from the top here in Florida.
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August 03, 2020 at 05:01PM
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In Pa. you eat the animals. In Florida the animals eat you | Keith Ori - pennlive.com
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