Why do we tolerate alligators in populated areas?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of gators in the SE US and there are a lot of people. Given the numbers of both, not that many folks are harmed by alligators every year.

My parents live in a golf community in the south so there are gators quite often. At least once a year they send me a photo of an alligator wandering down their street, or multiple gators on the golf course. What I do find mystifying are the HOAs or community regulations that limit yard-fencing. As a result, houses back up to these ponds and you can't just send your kids outside to play because you can't be certain a gator hasn't wandered into your yard.

I would love that. It would prevent people with kids from moving into the neighborhood. I'd much rather open my door and see an alligator than hear some child screaming from next door.

Typical southern attitude of somehow wanting to live apart from society while also trying to control society.

I live in NY. No alligators here, but plenty of children. Alligators would have a lot of options.

I'm PP who was responded to, btw.

[Anonymous]

The pythons alone keep me out of Florida. I just can't even imagine.

[Anonymous]

Question: with all the alligators/crocodiles, why aren't they eating all the pythons?

[Anonymous]

It baffles my mind how people can graduate school with zero understanding of ecology.

When you wipe out a species, there are huge effects throughout the entire ecosystem. Alligators are apex predators, and without them, mammal populations would skyrocket. These mammals prey on birds, so bird populations would crash. Fewer birds means WAY more bugs.

Do you want to live in a world of just bugs and rats? I don’t.

And don’t say we’d only remove alligators from where humans are; humans are literally everywhere. And alligators have been hunted to near extinction before; they were listened as endangered in the 1960s.

Learn to live with wildlife, people. It’s not nearly as dangerous as you think. I live in the Southwest, and I promise you I pass a rattlesnake every time I go on a walk. There are scorpions in my home. I feel lucky AF when I find a tarantula. There’s zero doubt in my mind I’ve passed mountain lions before, I just didn’t see them.

It’s so sad to me that people are so afraid of nature and so ignorant of how to interact with nature safely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It baffles my mind how people can graduate school with zero understanding of ecology.

When you wipe out a species, there are huge effects throughout the entire ecosystem. Alligators are apex predators, and without them, mammal populations would skyrocket. These mammals prey on birds, so bird populations would crash. Fewer birds means WAY more bugs.

Do you want to live in a world of just bugs and rats? I don’t.

And don’t say we’d only remove alligators from where humans are; humans are literally everywhere. And alligators have been hunted to near extinction before; they were listened as endangered in the 1960s.

Learn to live with wildlife, people. It’s not nearly as dangerous as you think. I live in the Southwest, and I promise you I pass a rattlesnake every time I go on a walk. There are scorpions in my home. I feel lucky AF when I find a tarantula. There’s zero doubt in my mind I’ve passed mountain lions before, I just didn’t see them.

It’s so sad to me that people are so afraid of nature and so ignorant of how to interact with nature safely.

You have forgotten that you are posting on DCUM. The only acceptable risk is zero risk.

[Anonymous]

Get the hell out of alligator country. They were there first.

I'm gonna bet most of these complainers call themselves environmentalists.

[Anonymous]

I've posted in this thread before, but I'll say it again-20 something million people live here and the vast vast majority of us don't see alligators or pythons on a regular basis or even rarely! The pythons aren't even in my area.

I used to live in a NE state with rattlesnakes and bears. Those bears will go right in your house, letting themselves in! But the vast majority of people don't see them regularly.

There is wildlife everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It baffles my mind how people can graduate school with zero understanding of ecology.

When you wipe out a species, there are huge effects throughout the entire ecosystem. Alligators are apex predators, and without them, mammal populations would skyrocket. These mammals prey on birds, so bird populations would crash. Fewer birds means WAY more bugs.

Do you want to live in a world of just bugs and rats? I don’t.

And don’t say we’d only remove alligators from where humans are; humans are literally everywhere. And alligators have been hunted to near extinction before; they were listened as endangered in the 1960s.

Learn to live with wildlife, people. It’s not nearly as dangerous as you think. I live in the Southwest, and I promise you I pass a rattlesnake every time I go on a walk. There are scorpions in my home. I feel lucky AF when I find a tarantula. There’s zero doubt in my mind I’ve passed mountain lions before, I just didn’t see them.

It’s so sad to me that people are so afraid of nature and so ignorant of how to interact with nature safely.

I don't know anyone in this thread who is asking for alligators to be eliminated. Can you find that quote please? My quote, which does call for removal of nuisance alligators from residential neighborhoods, does say that we can leave enough alligators in nature to perform their function as a keystone species, which would imply that I know something about ecology.

We can respect nature, and learn how to interact with nature, but that doesn't mean that we need to let nature take over our neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am absolutely terrified of alligators 🐊 which is why I could NEVER call Florida home.

I went there only once to visit Disneyworld and two weeks later a little boy was killed by one at a resort we stayed next to.

Being a non-native, I could see myself allowing my child to be in the water there since I wouldn’t think an alligator would reside in such a resort atmosphere.

Plus during that time the humidity was so unbearable - I would have put my feet into the water to cool off.

I live in Florida and you can’t tell me there weren’t MULTIPLE signs around that pond warning people of alligators. The parents probably ignored them because they were dumb and figured if there was one in the water they would see it. Not factoring that they are fast and move under water. There are signs around the ponds at my local Publix warning of alligators.

There weren’t. There was a no swimming sign. The kid was splashing around in shallow water, not swimming.

Of course NOW there are tons. It was obviously never public how much Disney settled that case for but it was hopefully quite a lot.

[Anonymous]

How many of us have been to FL a million times and never seen an alligator? I've only ever seen them when I specifically went looking for them. You know what I worry about more? Fire ants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It baffles my mind how people can graduate school with zero understanding of ecology.

When you wipe out a species, there are huge effects throughout the entire ecosystem. Alligators are apex predators, and without them, mammal populations would skyrocket. These mammals prey on birds, so bird populations would crash. Fewer birds means WAY more bugs.

Do you want to live in a world of just bugs and rats? I don’t.

And don’t say we’d only remove alligators from where humans are; humans are literally everywhere. And alligators have been hunted to near extinction before; they were listened as endangered in the 1960s.

Learn to live with wildlife, people. It’s not nearly as dangerous as you think. I live in the Southwest, and I promise you I pass a rattlesnake every time I go on a walk. There are scorpions in my home. I feel lucky AF when I find a tarantula. There’s zero doubt in my mind I’ve passed mountain lions before, I just didn’t see them.

It’s so sad to me that people are so afraid of nature and so ignorant of how to interact with nature safely.

It baffles my mind how you can read the original post which is clearly limited to incidents where one alligator creates a situation where humans are arguably in danger or severely inconvenienced to the point of utilizing significant resources from emergency responders and then pontificate about how stupid people are for suggesting wiping out alligators altogether when the post clearly did not call for that.

Just to clarify this for you: I think local authorities and individuals should have discretion to kill an alligator under certain circumstances. As evidenced by this thread (and data), gators are not in danger of extinction. It’s not like we’re talking about hunting.

[Anonymous]

FTR: this thread was prompted by a recent incident in coastal SC, not FL.

If you google alligators in recent news stories, you’ll see plenty of recent attacks and incidents—including outside of FL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question: with all the alligators/crocodiles, why aren't they eating all the pythons?

While alligators do eat snakes, the pythons are HUGE, like 20 feet long, and can, in fact, eat young alligators. They are hard for alligators to eat. It actually made the news when someone got a photo of an alligator eating a python.