Excerpt
As I said, these gators are all nuisance animals. They were brought here from someone’s pond, canal, or swimming pool. They crashed a barbecue and drank all the beer – or more likely, someone’s dog or cat. Here in Florida, when a gator is deemed a nuisance – and they have to be at least four feet long for that to happen – you will call the gator hotline – it’s 866-FWC-GATOR – and they’ll send a trapper. Whether it’s a large alligator or a smaller one, whether it’s the same cost to you – nothing. The trapper’s payment is that they get to keep the animal. They usually keep them until they have ten or twenty, and then they sell them to a processing plant where they get used for leather and meat. Some very lucky gators are trapped by organizations like mine, which bring them to refuges. They can never, never be released back into the wild. You may wonder if we’re helping. Sadly, we’re only helping a very few animals. We humans are encroaching into their territory and developing their wetland homes into condos and housing developments, and they die. Last year, my rescue saved about fifteen alligators. The state of Florida killed over ten thousand.