Trappers are still looking for the alligator that killed jogger Yovy Jimenez. Meanwhile there may be steps taken to control our burgeoning alligator population:
While trappers used to act only in response to complaints, now they can trap alligators at any time in certain populated places. These include swimming areas and boat ramps. The state has more than 200 of these open-harvest areas, but clearly they're not foolproof.The canal where Wednesday's attack took place had been designated an open-harvest area because people live around it and use the canal for fishing and water skiing, said Lindsey Hord, the state's nuisance alligator coordinator.
The state is also considering expanding recreational hunting. The South Florida Water Management District plans to allow alligator hunting this summer on property in southern Hendry County. And state wildlife managers are considering allowing more hunting in certain areas because the gator population continues to grow.
They're going to have to allow in hunters. There simply aren't enough trappers to cope.
Another reminder from Sanibel about who's invading whose territory and why:
Sanibel naturalist Mark “Bird” Westall, the island’s former mayor and alligator trapper, said it’s not the number of alligators — it’s the number of alligators living in residential areas.Although two-thirds of the island is preserve land, many alligators live in neighborhoods.
“When I go on the Sanibel River, I don’t see that many alligators around because the Sanibel River is not prime alligator habitat,” Westall said. “Residential ponds are prime alligator habitat. Developers make alligator habitat, and the alligators go, ‘This is cool. I have a deep lake and soft lawns to lie on. Why should I dredge my own hole?’ You always hear, ‘We’ve moved into the alligators’ habitat.’ That’s hogwash. We make alligator habitat.
Should alligators be eating people in the city? According to the Sun-Sentinel's very tasty-sounding David Fleshler in e-mail:
"To say it moved into human territory is to ignore the other side of the story which is this was gator territory for many thousands of years before humans moved into it."
That was back when alligators dredged their own canals.
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Update:
Feast, Interrupted
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Previous postings:
Old People Are Stubborn
I've been trying to finding a report on the burgeoning gator population in the SE USA in general; I swear they've gotten up as far north as the Flint River headwaters, just south of the Atlanta Airport. My theory is the only thing that'll stop'em is the Piedmont itself. Know any authoritative resources?
Posted by: carl in Atlanta at May 12, 2006 05:46 PMThe Georgia Natural History people say they go up to the Fall Line.
http://museum.nhm.uga.edu/gawildlife/reptiles/crocodilia/amississippiensis.html
This is what the Fall Line is:
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-721
That's what they SAY, but I say our antediluvian friends have had "them" fooled for a few years now. They're here all right. Them and their little nasty 'dillo buddies from the mammalian fringes. I dun seen 'em. Watch out, aT-lan-Ta!
You got freakin' monkeys, anacondas, parakeets, pythons, mambas, lions and God knows what else down there in S Fla don't you? Well, we got gators. Not many. Yet. But they're here, they're here. And they're breeding like only gators can do.
Posted by: carl in Atlanta at May 12, 2006 06:53 PMKeep a close eye on Fifi. And grow some eyes in the back of your head for gardening.
Posted by: Donnah at May 12, 2006 08:39 PMThe gator population continues to grow? But-but the state outlawed diazinon saying it caused undersized penises in alligators rendering them unable to breed. You would think that if they can't breed the population would dwindle instead of grow.
I get it now. The state just want me to have alligators and BUGS! (And NO I don't know who had the job of measuring the penises of alligators)
Posted by: Cindy at May 12, 2006 11:38 PMThat's gotta be added to that 'worst jobs' list. Like being an armpit-sniffer for a deodorant company.
Posted by: Donnah at May 12, 2006 11:40 PMmeasuring a gator's penis isn't all that hard to do..pardon the pun, when you're 'cleaning' them.
Please don't tell me you were thinking there was a Alligator Genetalia Investigatory division of the G&FC ?? Like CSI.. A little Ford pickup with a camper filled with digital photos of tiny gator peni, and Homer and Jethro at the wheel tooling their way to the next swamp...
Posted by: csason at May 13, 2006 03:13 PMHey Carl, next time you get up on Stone Mountain, look south..that big dark spot just before Tallahassee is the Okeefenokee swamp (too lazy to look up the spelling) home of the Georgia gators..a completely different species from the Florida gator.
The reason you don't hear about the Georgia gators
attacking anyone, is nobody ever lives to tell about it. They are more like Georgia monsters..one moves and you run...like hell.
"Alligator Genetalia Investigatory division of the G&FC."
God, that cracked me up.