Giant Alligator Captured in Miami Neighborhood

If this guy is only 8 feet long he is half grown. They can reach up to 15 feet. We had some longer than 8 feet when I lived in Boca Raton many years back. Back in the 1970's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_alligator

Adult male American alligators measure up to 3.4 to 4.6 m (11 to 15 ft) in length, and can weigh up to 453 kg (999 lb). Females are smaller, measuring around 3 m (9.8 ft).
 
When I visit my home in Florida, I fish at a lake that contains brackish water and I have seen several alligators in that lake. An eight foot alligator is not a "giant". I have seen gators longer than that and also many hatchlings, some that are already 1-2 feet long. I sometimes believe that the young gators are curious and usually approach me on the bank where I am fishing. I am not sure if it is being curious or wants my fish that I have caught. The young gators seem to have problems catching their own meal.

I have also driven across Alligator Alley in Florida, which is I-75 and travels west to east or vice versa. Normally, I get on at Naples and off at Fort Lauderdale. This route takes me through Everglades National Park. There are canals and ponds on both sides of the interstate and the gators will get up on the roadway from time to time, even though there is fencing that is supposed to prevent this from happening. There also has been two airliners that have gone down in the Everglades that I am aware of. One was the ValueJet crash and the other was an Eastern Airlines plane back quite a few years ago. Those are the two that I can think of off hand, but may have been more.

I remember reading about the recovery team fishing out parts of the downed ValueJet and they had to have sharpshooters with high powered rifles standing guard to keep the gators away from the workers while they were collecting the wreckage of the downed jet. I read about one worker that reached into the water where he was standing and he grabbed a hold of what he thought was a bundle of wires only to find out that when he pulled it out of the water that it was a rather large snake. That would have freaked me out.
 
I've had more sightings of gators and snakes in N. Carolina than I've ever had my time living in FL. Unless you live near lakes and ponds your not all that likely to have see gators. I've been in this area of FL going on five years, I haven't seen not one Total years in FL 11 years, saw one baby gator while visiting a park we usually went boating at, and there did see them sunning at a lake where they lived they we used to drive past but that was the extent of it.

They will be a problem on occasion if you live in their backyard which means your backyard will also be a part of their backyard, but mostly, your not likely to see gators roaming all over the place on any given day, not likely to encounter them unless you go near where they tend to swim or some fool decides to bring one home as a pet and it should slip out the back door to roam the neighborhood someday. LOL! It all really will depend on where one lives as to how much wild life they're likely to encounter any given place really.



[video]http://www.myfoxny.com/story/27871534/can-you-keep-an-8-foot-long-alligator-as-a-pet-animal-control-says-no[/video]


croc pet

 
An unusual pet!
the very big ones are scary I must admit, am quite glad to be living somewhere where the largest thing you may run into is a small deer or a badger.
 
I went to visit friends in Virginia years ago; they travel a lot. They went to Florida several times a year to visit my friend’s MIL. Once they asked if I wanted to see movie from their trip and told me in advance they stopped and watched alligator wrestlers.

Okay…..so,I watched. Those gator wrestler guys are NUTS. Swiping their arms across alligator’s open mouth, then doing a little dance when audience gasped and applauded. Then grabbing the gator and wrestling…..no tape on it’s mouth. (shudder)
 
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