Watch Where You Step

I can remember back to when I was a teen in the early 70's trekking threw the swamps of southern Louisiana.
We would go fishing and hunting. Never really thought about the dangers because the worst thing you may come across was a water moccasin. Moccasin are not really aggressive unless you step directly on them; and god forbid you ever got bitten by one but there was always anti venom.

Not so today. You really have to watch where you step if you get off the beaten path in swampy areas because you may be bitten by something that has no anti venom.

I took these pictures today.
They are a drainage ditch that is in a fenced area of a chemical plant.
Many people walk by here everyday and as you can tell from the pictures he has no fear of humans.
He just sat there even as I threw a couple of rocks in the water to scare him.




Can you spot him?
Here is a better picture.





Got to be a 5 footer easy.
While I do not think we have as bad a problem as Florida has we are getting there.

In fact there was a accident on the interstate a couple of years ago.
One car in the left lane came to a sudden screeching stop.
Car behind him ran into back of first car at about 70 MPH.
1 or 2 killed.
Come to find out the first car stopped because he had just hit a 11 foot alligator in the road.

So you guys can complain about your nuisance wild animals all you want.
At least your wild animals do not bite your leg off.

Hopefully they'll start invading the Rio Grande river soon.

If you dont think a wild boar will bite off body parts try one out sometime. TWRA has also seen fit to introduce black bear into our area. I told one of the TWRA reps the way I look at it there is a reason our ancestors killed those varmits out years ago. I figure the same with your gator. there was a reason people wanted rid of them.

hopefully heck, lets bring a few semi loads of these guys and put them in there, they'll do what washington cant lol

Looks as if he would make a couple of nice wallets. there are lots of things with wild animals I like but all of the forigen stuff and snakes and gators you can blow all of them up. I still like the photo of where the python tried to swallow a gator. He done blowed up!

John, many years ago I killed one about that size, several miles south of you. Banged him on the head with a big wrench and pulled him into the boat.

Friend of mine has a place in Florida where he spends his winters. Couple years ago working in the garage he got bit by a Brown Recluse spider, he didn't know what bit him waited over the weekend, then went to the hospital. Lost a good size chunk of his leg to that little spider.

Shows you how warm it's been around here Jerry.
A cold blooded animal out sunning it self in the middle of February.

Weren't alligators on the endanger species list a while back? As many as the swamp guys get on tv seems like they'd keep the population down. What would happen if someone brought African crocodiles and put them in the swamp? Would they multiply like pythons?

We didn't have them here when we were growing up. Dad talked about hunting them when he was young. Now there are lots of them. Almostost every body of water has them, particularly golf course ponds. Golfers must be delicious.
Ron

No kidding, this winter the turtles haven't missed many days out on their logs.

My understanding is that gators were hunted for their hide, shoes, purses, etc and their numbers were greatly reduced by maybe the 60s or 70s. They outlawed hunting them but appearantly hunting is now allowed. Went in a pawn shop today and they had several wildlife heads on the wall and a couple of gator skins. BTW, one of the heads was from a huge buffalo(bison). I'm in SC and fortunately we don't have gators where I live. We do have coyotes and I have seen a cougar. Wild hogs are getting close. I don't guess the gators do anything useful like killing wild hogs.

KEH