Alligator snatches Canon DSLR from photographer and then returns it eight months later
posted Friday, August 23, 2013 at 4:22 PM EDT
Happy Friday, everyone! Here's a nice story to set you off on your weekend photography adventures. It seems that Mario Aldecoa was photographing alligators during a night shoot at the Everglades Alligator Farm eight months ago, when one aggressive gator leapt out of the water and grabbed Aldecoa's entire camera rig, which included a Canon DSLR and lens, a flash, and the tripod it was attached to.
The frisky gator dragged all the gear into the water and despite a search of the swamp the next day with friends, Aldecoa's pricey rig seemed gone forever.
All was not lost though.
A week ago, a keeper at the alligator farm saw a gator come out of the water with the camera wrapped around its foot. After retrieving the DSLR, he called Aldecoa who came to inspect the damage. Unfortunately, the camera was shot though a bunch of his images still survived on the memory card.
“It happened so quick,” Aldecoa said. “Besides losing the camera, I had a little bit of nervous response, like, wow, that could’ve been me. If this animal would’ve grabbed me, it would not have let go. So I was actually in a little bit of shock and grateful that I’m safe, even though my hard-earned money was down the drain.”
He has since bought a new camera and is back shooting again, but this time is keeping his distance from alligators.
“You can still get close to a certain extent, if you understand their behavior, but you can’t let your guard down basically, and that’s kind of what I think I did.”
Read more about Aldecoa's Everglades adventure at Grind TV.
(Via BorrowLenses.com's Facebook page)