[Beth]

A friend of ours got bit while pleaco (sp?) diving in the Tampa Bypass Canal. A witness with him said it was over twelve feet long and I believe it, it isn't that unusual to see a gator that big when out on the water. My friend had his shoulder and ribcage bitten, I cannot even say how many punctures there were, but the wounds were so deep that the doctors said that they couldn't stitch them because they were worried about infection. He survived because he started punching the hell out of the gator's nose till it let go.

It is gator mating season. Most people who have been here long enough know that this is a bad time of year. I ban my kids from swimming in lakes and ponds and rivers during this time, which is a shame because my daughter loves the swimming hole. I make the kids stay away from the canal, and I bring the dogs in at night at this time of year. I also know to actually check the grounds for gators when I go out at night. (Soon I'll have to check for cotton mouths.) I was also taught to run in a zigzag pattern to outrun an alligator because they are fast spurt runners, this is something I remind my kids of every year. I'm not paranoid, I just don't want my kids to become gator bait.

Now, part of the problem is that so many people move here and feed the alligators, either because they are idiots, ignorant of the dangers of feeding gators, or just don't care that they are endangering other's lives by feeding gators. Another problem is that so many developments are being built around bodies of water. Bodies that are very likely to have gators in them.