Boat captain has hand bitten off by alligator

A BOAT captain was recovering in hospital last night after his hand was snatched off by an alligator while showing holidaymakers around Florida’s Everglades swamp.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) is investigating eyewitness claims that Wallace Weatherholt, 63, may have been offering the reptile an illicit snack when it lunged out of the water and snapped its jaws around his arm.

Wildlife officers killed the alligator and retrieved the hand from its stomach, but doctors were unable to reattach it.

“He’s stable and in good spirits, which is remarkable in the circumstances,” said the injured man’s manager, Glenn Smith, of Captain Doug’s Everglades Tours.

Airboat trips in the Everglades, Americas largest sub-tropical wilderness, are among Florida’s most popular tourist attractions. But the FWCC has prosecuted a number of boat guides for luring alligators towards their boats with tidbits such as marshmallows, which is an offence.

Carli Segelson, a spokesman for the FWCC, said: “We are still investigating the cause of the incident. It is illegal and dangerous to feed alligators, because they can lose their natural wariness around humans.”

A fellow airboat captain piloted Mr Weatherholt and his boat to shore.