There was a long thread here about a croc eating a small annoying dog and other crocodylians eating people and such.
Here is logical way to co-exist with a gator by setting boundaries.
I was talking to a fellow that I shoot bullseye with over at the pensacola rifle and pistol club and he described how they had trained the local 9 ft alligator to stay away from their side of a local bayou. When it ever it gets close to their side about 4 of the homeowners shoot it with a bb gun. The bbs do not injure it. They do not want to kill it because then they might get an untrained gator that would be more dangerous. She keeps a nest on the other side of their local bayou. Dogs often chase deer on the marshy opposite shore. Once they saw two lab like dogs chasing a deer and right behind them was the gator that was following the dogs. He did not say how that ended.
A trained gator does have one benefit, it eats other animals that one does not want around that likely includes water moccasins.
Here is logical way to co-exist with a gator by setting boundaries.
I was talking to a fellow that I shoot bullseye with over at the pensacola rifle and pistol club and he described how they had trained the local 9 ft alligator to stay away from their side of a local bayou. When it ever it gets close to their side about 4 of the homeowners shoot it with a bb gun. The bbs do not injure it. They do not want to kill it because then they might get an untrained gator that would be more dangerous. She keeps a nest on the other side of their local bayou. Dogs often chase deer on the marshy opposite shore. Once they saw two lab like dogs chasing a deer and right behind them was the gator that was following the dogs. He did not say how that ended.
A trained gator does have one benefit, it eats other animals that one does not want around that likely includes water moccasins.
Although cottonmouths or water moccasins are at the top of the food chain, preying on other snakes, small animals, insects and large mammals on occasion, they are not immune to becoming the prey of other animals, including other species of snakes, turtles, alligators, mammals and birds. The greatest threat to the water moccasin, however, is man.