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It's the same old story everywhere. People throw cute 4 foot gators in 
the flood retention pond in their development food.  When the gator gets 
to be 8 feet and is knocking on the back door for food - they freak and 
call animal control to "kill the aggressive alligator." 

Unless there is some other factors a work, wild animals will not bother 
humans. You won't see many because they don't want the interaction.

The root problem is the human. If left well enough alone, the rattler 
will be long gone from the train in the brush watching you go by, the 
gator will be in the water as far away from your canoe as he can get, 
the black bear will go about his own business, etc.

Where we used to live there was a creek below our place. It ran into the 
Myakka river about a mile down. The Myakka river is a Florida wild and 
scenic river. I used to put my canoe in and fish that creek - some 
really nice bass. The first day I was exploring the creek come to a big 
opening in the creek. It was big enough to use a fly rod and boy did I 
take some nice fish from that hole. There I saw in front of me what 
looked like two huge live oak trees down across the creek. Then they 
moved. This part of the creek - probably a bull and sow - belonged to 
the bull gator. I saw him many times. He'd seem me and off he'd go.

The lot right above that opening was sold and someone built a house on 
it. In the winter the bull gator would come up and sun himself about 100 
feet from their back door.Well you know the story, garbage left out 
back. The woman of the house though it was cute to see how he would go 
after chicken bones, etc.

Next thing you know the gator was sunning himself closer and closer to 
the house - that's where the 2 PM snack was served. She became afraid to 
go outside. Next thing you know animal control was there. The gator was 
too big to be trapped and moved. They had to kill him. He was 14 feet 
long. I suspect he had been sunning himself in that piece of ground for 
over 75 years.

The problem was not the gator - it was the people.

Truman

Diane Trefethen wrote:
> Well, the Tevis bears have learned that if they move toward people 
> and/or horses, they run away.  “THAT is what you've taught” them.  
> They will become more and more aggressive unless their little brains 
> are given different lessons.


--

"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what 
we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true." Bertrand 
Russell


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