Alligators have made an astounding recovery since the days when they were endangered. Florida is literally crawling with them. (As are several other Southern states.)
I never say never, but there is little risk of them going back onto the endangered list.
Have you not read this thread? There are almost a million and a half gators currently in FL. Florida kills thousands of alligators every year.
Alligators were taken off the endangered species list in 1987 (which is not recent!) and the population has done nothing but rise since then. The only reason alligators are still on the threatened list is that they look similiar to the FL crocodile which is endangered. There is currently no danger of alligators going back on the endangered species list.
You are the one who is dead wrong.
<—link
Gators love the habitats we create for them. Canals particularly.
http://agrigator.ifas.ufl.edu/gators/"]Alligators generally.
The Florida crocs. are somewhat threatened by habitat loss in South Florida. The “salties” (Steveoism) are rare. Don’t confuse those with the alligator–the Florida state reptile–very common throughout the entire state.
Gator mating season traditionally generates false nuisance complaints. Note: boys being eaten is not a false nuisance complaint. I was thinking of “Man Lassos Gator.”
Fixed link.
Alligators were down-listed from “endangered” to “threatened” in 1975 (28 years ago), and were de-listed entirely in 1987 (16 years ago). Cite. Since then, there has been something of a gator population explosion, which is part of the problem.
Note: I constantly have problems with subject-verb agreement, punctuation, capitalization, links, sometimes spelling, anxiety, bug bites, and many other things. I keep trying for the team here at the SDMB. What you are getting is a puffed up first draft complete with links. Anway…
Please consider this my omnibus correction for all of that…ARRGH…in this case boys being eaten is.
We need a poke eyes out smilie.
I heard there wasn’t much of a complaint as long as the gators restricted themselves to snarfing snowbirds…
Thank you for the clarification spoke.
I am aware of such and did not make direct mention for fear of seeming to be accusing.
It does not make it right for him to be using such equipment though.
casdave
I find your arguments contradictory.
On one hand, you seem to believe that children today are overprotected.
On the other, you don’t approve of children performing routine ranch chores which often involve the use of heavy equipment.
This morning I learned to kill and gut chickens.
Two of the four people that helped me were 15 and 8 years old respectively.
The 8 year old was responsible for slitting the chickens throats.
Now, I know some parents that would never let a child of that age use an exceptionally sharp knife.
This little boy was very aware of the dangers and extremely responsible.
I’m not sure if you would have approved but I certainly did, given the circumstances.
More fact pages. Large gators grow upwards of twelve feet. That’s close to four meters if you’ve been metricized. Adult males can weigh close to 1000 lbs. Yet, I’ve seen fat 10 footers living on golf courses, or near homes. If everyone is with the program: no feeding, no swimming, leash dogs, watch kids, awareness, rarely do humans and gator intermix.
Children in Florida ‘risk’ gators every day, in a sense. But attacks are rare. That suggests the system, as others have mentioned–culling the large aggressive gators–has worked. As the several cites I’ve provided have shown, the population is quite large. It’s in the millions.
Here’s a big PDF on the Florida alligator industry.
Let me add that if an American Crocodile had killed the boy, I would absolutely be against killing it, no matter how aggressive it was. The loss of even a single crocodile could be a problem for the species.
But we are killing thousands of alligators every year. We give out hunting/trapping licenses for them. And any time anyone calls in a complaint about an alligator the gator is killed if it is over 4 feet.
Repeat. Every problem gator over 4 feet long is killed. Every one. This is the policy of the state of Florida.
Killing these gators was SOP. If you are upset about the deaths of these gators, then why aren’t you aghast about the other gator killings that happen every day? I’m not for the indiscriminate killing of animals. But you can love and appreciate animals and also kill them occasionally.
There is a differance between overprotection and negligence.
I certainly would not allow a child near heavy rotating machinery that was unprotected, too many adults die every year from accidents on farms as it is.
Legislation sometimes seems to be enacted to make up for poor supervision, if a child is taught to gut chickens and is supervised correctly there is no problem, dependant of course on the nature of the child.
I just do not imagine any circumstances where it is wise for a child to be around operating farm machinery that is ungaurded, things like p.t.o 's and linkages are notorious accident blackspots, often due to complacency.
Even something seemingly as routine as driving a tractor, or riding alongside the driver can be very dangerous, especially on sloping terrain.