And I Needed To Know This Why????

[Ladydragon]

lol.. but oh so worth it.. to finally be rid of her.

[Cassandra88]

Thats so annoying about the dog and gator. People of course always want to blame someone or something, it was the evil gators fault, not the owners for not watching their dog. Its common sense that you don't let your pets run around near dangerous places.

[Alice]

Living here in Central Florida it's pretty common to hear about gators attacking a small animal or person. Many times it's because people have fed the gator (marshmellows are a big treat) and they lose they fear.

Also, while gators do live in swamps, they also live in about every body of water here in Florida - pristine lakes within housing subdivisions are prime gator habitat. With houses on the lakes (some are just big retention ponds that are landscaped very nicely) going for a primium, encounters are bound to happen. In addition, in many developments, if your house is on a lake you can't fence the backyard . . . so if you have a dog or a cat it is very difficult to safely manage the situation - you need to be extra viligent.

The gator trappers (yes there is an industry that catches gators) are more inclined to kill the gator when they are called in because they sell the meat and hide at a big profit. Very seldom is it worth their time to move the gator to another body of water.

Some of the cities and counties that trap "nuisance" gators release them into one large lake, called Lake Jesup, where it is rumored that you can walk from one end to the other (about 5 miles) on the back of gators and never get wet. For a long time, the gator experts said it had more gators in it then any lake in the world; however, Lake Okeechobee took over that title earlier this year.

BTW, Nate, I agree wth your comments on Paris - why does the media continue to put her in our faces? It reminds me of when Anna Nicole died . . .

[frankykeno]

I've lived years ago in some pretty remote places (Canadian Yukon, way way up in Northern Ontario, Canada) and you just get used to living with the resident wild life and work around them. You don't blame them for being what they are.

You have to live smart when grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, foxes, etc. are your neighbours so you learn to build heavy garbage boxes, don't feed your pets outside, or let your small dogs/cats roam unsupervised. Heck the ravens up there are huge! We had a neighbour that didn't think about it and put her small lap dog out on a tie out lead with a bone to chew on. The poor dog got swarmed by some very aggressive ravens! Pecked the living crap out the poor dog before she heard the commotion and chased them off.

You can't blame the wildlife though, they are just adjusting to human intrusion on their land and finding our messy human way to live a good food resource. It's sad though. Up in northern Ontario there were so many black bears put down each year because they became used to feeding on garbage that people didn't lock up properly. Relocating them, especially a female and cubs often just didn't work and they became "problem bears".