Emails Asked Firefighters To Stop Feeding Gators Near Disney Two Months Before Attack

Law enforcement officials search the Seven Seas Lagoon outside the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa on Wednesday, June 15, 2016, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., after a two-year-old toddler was dragged into the lake by an all... Law enforcement officials search the Seven Seas Lagoon outside the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa on Wednesday, June 15, 2016, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., after a two-year-old toddler was dragged into the lake by an alligator. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack) MORE LESS

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Firefighters at Walt Disney World were warned to stop feeding alligators at one of the resort’s fire stations two months before an alligator killed a toddler.

According to emails obtained by Orlando Sentinel (http://tinyurl.com/j24jg7g ), Reedy Creek Emergency Services admonished firefighters for feeding at least one of two alligators at a station less than a half-mile from Seven Seas Lagoon where 2-year-old son Lane Graves of Omaha, Nebraska, was killed after being pulled into the water by a gator.

Feeding alligators is illegal.

The email said employees were afraid after one gator was spotted near the parking lot and asked officials to remove it.

Reedy Creek District Administrator John Classe said Disney’s animal-control department was contacted but he did not know whether either alligator was ever removed.

A Disney spokeswoman said Wednesday it was unclear whether the gator had been removed.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. Avatar for marby marby says:

    This must make the family’s agony even worse - the knowledge that there were unaddressed concerns about the alligator problem. A lawsuit (which I think they are entitled to) won’t make up for the loss of that child.

  2. FIFY

  3. What the heck!

  4. These guys live in Florida and still fed the gators?!?!?!? Idiots!!

  5. Forget it Jake, its Florida.

    We have a big statue at the state line with a plaque that reads “Give us your crazy, your insane, your meth heads, yearning to get their freak on…” *

    • No not really. Why spend money for that when its already the rule?

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