If we beat teh gheytors, it's still a good season.

F-L-O-R-I-D-A!
S-U-C-K-S!

Florida Sucks! Florida Sucks! Florida Sucks!
WOOO!

mloree: do they still play football at FSU?

Do they still fark cows in Hogtown?

I suspect there are many UF fans and alum (save Confabulat and a few others) whom remember the lowly "slow wave" last years of Galen Hall et al., and needed to hire the head coach of Duke football to save the program.

FSU football will be back. Enjoy this while you can.

Make that "not many UF alum".

Damn, drunk at 10:15 am. A new low.

HOORAY!!!!

Open the darn buggers up to hunting again!

When I was a kid, we played in the many, big drainage canals around the place (back then, most ran clear and shallow) and camped by and swam in the many fresh or sulfur water ponds and lakes. I used to go to one out at a little used and mostly abandoned Boy Scout camp out in the swamps and spend the day there, swimming and snorkeling by myself.

We knew there were 'gators in the river and, occasionally, saw some, but there weren't that many.

The hunters kept their numbers down by killing them off for meat, hides and to be stuffed. There was quite an industry in it and small, stuffed alligators could be found in most tourist shops along with alligator hide purses, billfolds, shoes and boots. You could by stuffed alligator heads -- mouth open, naturally, to display the teeth, along with just the skulls. Some smaller ones had ashtrays in them. Some were made into lamps.

The hides were shipped out by the ton to be tanned and made into shoes and purses. I'm not real sure where the meat went, especially since the best part is only the tail, but there was a market for that and many a 'home grown Florida Cracker' fed his family with gator tail, smoked, fried, broiled and roasted.

Within 5 years of their becoming an 'endangered species' they started popping up in places they had not been seen in years. Now these nasty buggers are basically in every puddle and stream across the State. Plus, they can stand salt water and wind up in the brackish lagoons and some had been spotted near beaches by inlets.

An alligator is a mindless eating machine. You cannot tame them. They get about as big as a car, if not bigger and can weigh in at 400 lbs. They're sneaky, able to lurk under water for hours, or blend in with the weeds and attack anything which comes by. On land, they can rise up on their legs and run pretty fast.

They're the sharks of the swamps and have no problem eating their own young.

Once they bite, the closing jaw pressure is in the hundreds of pounds, though opening the jaw is much less. Those teeth crunch through everything. Whatever they catch near the water, they like to drag in and drown. Sometimes, they'll spin wildly and rip off their prey's limb or shatter bones. Being killed by an alligator, for anything bigger than a dog, is a nasty, messy way to go. Plus, the teeth are often festooned with bacteria so if you do survive the bite, you run a high risk of dying from the bacteria.

These days there's no way I'd go down in the canals any more or let kids do it. Most of the lakes I used to swim in are dangerous now and others have to be swept for lurking gators before allowing the public in. Even those small ponds in housing developments must be considered with suspicion and most have at least a small gator in them.

Almost every salvage pond has a gator or two in them.

You can shoot a big one almost all day with a .22 and watch the bullets bounce off it's head or basically just manage to irritate it.

Over the years, I've warned many a person about making a pet of that gator in their pond, 20 feet from their back door and been basically ignored -- until the 'cute little bugger at 3 feet' grows into a 14 foot monster able to just take what he wants. (I warned a jogger who used to run at night around his pond, that a 5 foot gator crossed the road frequently and lurked in the shallows very near his path. He said he knew about it and it was harmless and they all considered it a pet. I wonder if he thought so when it reached 6 feet and started snacking on the local dogs and eyeing him up?)

So, as far as I'm concerned, blast the darn things back until they're endangered again.

Most of you folks don't have to live with them. We do.

It's reached the point that even if I camp on an island in the lagoon, I carry a rifle and know how to spot gators at nigh. I wouldn't even go swimming alone in that Boy Scout camp lake, even though the place is now heavily used.

Nasty buggers, gators are.

They had to wait for Steve Irwin to die before bringing this out into the open.

I know, I know, croc =/ gator, but who would really care about the distinction?

/now if they'd only up the deer limit around here, there are as many deer as squirrels here

Rik01

So, as far as I'm concerned, blast the darn things back until they're endangered again.

Most of you folks don't have to live with them. We do.

Dude, I probably predate you, also grew up in FL, and spent a lot of time in the pine woods, swamps, and swimming in lakes, ponds, springs, drainage canals, etc. I believe your rant went on a wee bit too long and a bit exaggerated the gator threat, both past and present.

The reason most old swimming places are too dangerous isn't from gators, just too many people living and pooping in FL. It just ain't as healthy to swim in places contaminated with high bacteria counts from leaking septic tanks, sewer pipes, sewage spills, etc.

As for sulfur water ponds and lakes, most sulphur water originates from underground sources like Sulphur Springs on the Hillsborough. I think you're mixing tannic acid-colored water from cypress and other swamp stuff with sulphur water.

Even with the upsurge this year in gator-related deaths (like 3 in two weeks), we got more Floridians dead from other sources each year than from a couple of gators, like lightning, brain-eating amoebas, drowning, DUIs, poor gun management skills, and my personal favorite, unlicensed boat operators.

/Now get off my lawn!

CowboyNinjaD

This is the best thing that ever could have happened to the state of Florida. Alligators are horrible animals that deserve to be destroyed.

I've never gone hunting, and I don't even own a gun, but all that's going to change when it's open season on alligators. They just sit there and look creep. How could you not want to shoot one?

How could I not want to shoot a gator? I'd rather pick off amateur gator hunters running loose in the suburbs & swamps than gators. They're easier prey.

AirForceVet

Dude, I probably predate you, also grew up in FL, and spent a lot of time in the pine woods, swamps, and swimming in lakes, ponds, springs, drainage canals, etc. I believe your rant went on a wee bit too long and a bit exaggerated the gator threat, both past and present.

Not exactly. I live in my childhood home in my old neighborhood and I used to be a motor route paper man. We've scores of lakes around here, many of which are fed by artesian wells -- sulfur water. Many of them have stand pipes. The lake at the Boy Scout camp is fed by a sulfur well -- as clearly indicated by all of the slimy beard krap that formed in the pipe and well head when we used to let it run constantly. -- And the stink.

They built high end communities all up and down my road within the last 4 years, and most have salvage ponds and each has one or more gators in it. A pond I used to swim in as a kid in a nice little neighborhood has gators in it. Every mobile home park in the area with ponds have gators in them. I was a delivery driver in the next city over and the mobile home parks there, with ponds, had gators in them.

My younger brother boats a lot in the Indian River Lagoon and surprised me by reporting gators in it, especially at the mouths of fresh water canals that empty into the brackish water.

I don't like gators. They're dangerous, nasty, tough critters.

They should have just restricted the hunting on them and left the buggers at barely above the endangered level.

Plus, come nesting season, you don't want to accidentally stumble on a female gator guarding her nest because she'll go after almost anything then.

The buggers on these animal shows who protect and preserve the gators are experts at handling them and, quite often they make it look far too easy. That has a tendency to give folks a false sense of security when one pops up in their backyard pond. The small ones are cute and no threat, but they grow fast into 14 foot, toothy monsters.