Endangered Species Act has controlled the gators since the 70s or so. Florida stopped hunting
in the early 60s. When I first moved there in '65, a neighbor was a "fish cop" and one of his duties
was catching gator poachers. Back then seeing a 6 ft gator was quite unusual. By the 80s seeing
that size was common, and in the 90s I saw one about 12 ft long sleeping on a small two lane road
late one night.....
I was cruising along at about 70 mph, saw SOMETHING in the headlights way
down the road, lifted off the gas, the something started looking like a big black log laying across the
road, as I got closer I could finally ID it as a very large gator. He was sound asleep, enjoying the
residual heat from the blacktop. I slowly pulled around him, barely keeping two wheels on the
pavement. Had one pretty much as long as a 17 ft canoe suddenly submerge as we slid up
along side him as he was sleeping afloat at the edge of a river..... we were looking the other way
for our friends in another canoe, and drifted up parallel to him. When we were about 4 ft away,
the water just erupted, as he "made a hole" leaving. We pulled paddles out and froze, expecting
BAD stuff to happen, but he just left in a hurry.
THAT was a hairy few seconds!
It is not legal to shoot a gator in Florida on any public waters which is pretty much any waters.
Only "nuisance gator professionals" can do this and they are entirely inadequate. Gators move and
you CANNOT control where they get to, believe it. Gators do not fear humans, but a full sized adult
isn't normally seen as prey, too big for MOST of them, but dogs, cats and little kids..... not so
much. And a 12 ft or larger gator -- I wouldn't trust them not to go for an adult. I wouldn't
swim where even a 4 ft or larger one was known to be, just because I want to be safe.
This is a preview of what the wolves will be doing in a few years, and will be protected by the
guys in DC. More and more of them will be out there every year, and they will be killing livestock
and pets. Eventually, it will be little kids, sad to predict.
In Florida, people have learned to keep their dogs AWAY from water, especially at night when
the gators hunt. Dogs are tidbits and a gator will eliminate all of them from a lake in a few days
if folks let the dogs run free. This was true in the 80s and later as the gators got bigger.
Sorry for the family, but this has been coming, and we have talked about it in our family
for decades. Thinking that the world is a Disney movie -- even at Disney World, is a very
dysfunctional view. The world remains a dangerous place.
Bill