Welcome to Florida
I was very sad to read the article about the alligator who ate the dog. It is simply horrible to think of even losing a pet this way, much less to watch it.
Being a native, alligators were always around when I was a kid. Growing up in central Florida, we did not have the opportunity to swim anywhere but lakes and phosphate pits. I can guarantee there were gators in both. I never saw one. In fact, none of us kids ever saw one. The reason is we knew better than to feed them. We knew better than to allow our dogs close to the water's edge, although before all the leash laws, many of our dogs swam in the lakes after romping through town before collapsing on the front porch to sleep the heat of the day away. the gators were more frightened of us because we did not desensitize them to humans so they did not associate us with food. Alligators are not, like their cousins the crocodiles, aggressive in nature. Food sources are food sources and as this article states, dogs are low to the ground and gators think food.
As more and more people move to this state, the problems become huge for the gators. If one eats a dog or becomes to close to humans, they attempt to relocate it to a less populated area. These less populated areas are becoming few and far between. The gator is sometimes destroyed just for being a gator.
I think everyone who moves to Florida should have a handbook showing the native critters and what they do. Maybe then they would learn what can happen when you don't pay attention to what the natives have told you all along.
Being a native, alligators were always around when I was a kid. Growing up in central Florida, we did not have the opportunity to swim anywhere but lakes and phosphate pits. I can guarantee there were gators in both. I never saw one. In fact, none of us kids ever saw one. The reason is we knew better than to feed them. We knew better than to allow our dogs close to the water's edge, although before all the leash laws, many of our dogs swam in the lakes after romping through town before collapsing on the front porch to sleep the heat of the day away. the gators were more frightened of us because we did not desensitize them to humans so they did not associate us with food. Alligators are not, like their cousins the crocodiles, aggressive in nature. Food sources are food sources and as this article states, dogs are low to the ground and gators think food.
As more and more people move to this state, the problems become huge for the gators. If one eats a dog or becomes to close to humans, they attempt to relocate it to a less populated area. These less populated areas are becoming few and far between. The gator is sometimes destroyed just for being a gator.
I think everyone who moves to Florida should have a handbook showing the native critters and what they do. Maybe then they would learn what can happen when you don't pay attention to what the natives have told you all along.
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