Name another place on planet Earth where you could see an alligator chasing down a black bear in the water. Go ahead… I’ll wait.
It’s no secret that the “Sunshine State” is home to a seemingly endless – and dangerous – variety of wildlife. You’ve got pythons, iguanas, wild hogs, Florida panthers, and sharks and everything else in the ocean, just to name a few. You name it, and Florida’s probably got it. And in this latest video out of the southern state, you’ll see two apex predators (that I didn’t even name in the list above) in a swim-off for survival.
There’s over one million alligators that live in Florida, so it’s safe to say they run the state’s waterways. Occasionally, other animals need to utilize the water, which puts them in peril, whether they realize it or not. This black bear (yes, there are bears in Florida… few thousand of them) was trying to cross the Kissimmee River in south-central Florida, and sure enough… an alligator was right on its trail.
A fisherman by the name of Justin Morgan was out on the water when he got to see this wild encounter in person. He was kind enough to turn his camera on to capture the tail end of the black bear’s swim for its life. It appears that the bear was using the river as a shortcut to some dry land on the other side, and there was a gator lurking nearby.
Black bears are great swimmers, but they are no match in a race against an alligator, which can swim at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. This land mammal was just quick enough to reach the shore ahead of the gator that was tracking. I’d be willing to bet that, if it was even 10 or 20 yards further from land, this alligator may have enjoyed a waterside bear dinner.
Check it out:
Just in the nick of time.
How about the bear getting out of the water and immediately checking to see if it had put enough distance between itself and the gator? These Florida bears are just built different, I suppose. I’m sure it knew it was being chased, and I’m no expert on bear swimming or survival… but I bet that’s the fastest the bear has ever swam.
Social media got a kick out of the video, and left comments and jokes below the post like these:
“He said, ‘Later gator’ once he got to the other side.”
“That’s a fight I wanna see, still betting on the bear.”
“The bear made it through to the edge just in time.”
“I’ve never thought once about a gator and a bear getting into it.”
“Yep… that’s a Florida post.”
“That bear was like, ‘Now that I’m on land, we’re in MY territory.'”
“All that’s missing is a shark chasing the alligator.”
That would have given us the “Florida Hat Trick.”
