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Rick Scott apparently hates alligators. He hates them so much he’s had them skinned and made into his really tacky, gold embossed, custom “governor” boots. He hates them so much that he doesn’t want to even be near a live one, unless he had a gun and is shooting at it. Apparently Scott thinks that him shooting an Alligator could be somehow used to “promote Florida.”
Scott was chatting with employees of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the Associated Press reports this odd little exchange:
Scott said Florida’s the perfect place for outdoor activities such as bird watching, fishing, hunting and just communing with nature.
“My least favorite though is our alligators,” Scott acknowledged. “I don’t want to be close to them that much.”
He later added, though, that he’d be “receptive” to shooting one if that would help promote Florida.
Given Florida’s latest tourism-killing tragedy of two British tourists being shot in Sarasota, we don’t really see how anything involving guns and killing things is going to be a good way to promote Florida.
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Maybe he wants to take a page from the Sarah Palin playbook and shoot at alligators from helicopters? Who knows?
Though, Riptide has discovered that Scott did have a previous encounter with a gator. Here, via the Orlando Sentinel, is Scott holding an albino gator.
At first he seems disgusted and then suddenly pleased by the alligator. Maybe the lil’ gator told an awesome joke. Still, it seems strange he says he doesn’t want to be around the reptile and, yet, here is pictorial proof of him hanging around with one. Maybe Scott only likes white alligators, and doesn’t care much for the darker skinned variety. Is Rick Scott an alligator racist? These are the tough questions Floridians need answers to.
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