I’m not sure exactly how they count them, but supposedly there are over a million Gators in Florida. It’s safe to assume that any and every body of water has a gator in it.
This! They may not always be visible but it’s safe to assume if your neighborhood has a lake ( which most communities do around here) it’s safe to assume you’re neighbors with a gator
👍 Newbies and visitors often ask how they should know whether there’s a gator in that pond/lake/ditch.
Is it wet? That’s how you know. Stop playing fetch with your dog by throwing sticks in the water FFS.
My yard in ocala would flood everytime it rained. I walked outside one morning to see a 6 footer just chilling in my back yard puddle. I sat out there and smoked a cig and told him bye when I left. Dude was pretty chill.
I used to joke everytime anyone spilled a drink that there'd be a gator in the puddle within 10 mins.
Lol yeah, they just pop up. It’s funny that you would talk to him though. I do the same thing with all of the lizards on my front porch. I watch them through the window and I give them all names.
I talk to any animal I see lol. I had an entire conversation with an iguana down in west palm beach. Then a raccoon came screaming in and murked him. 10/10 experience, I miss living in Florida lmao
Haha! It’s just fairly normal to me. There’s actually a local business that adopted a blind gator. They dress her up, and you can take pictures with her. The owner picks her up and throws her over his shoulder to carry her around. Normal Floridaman stuff!
😬 Would you like to borrow some? I can hook you up…got a few Burmese pythons down in the glades that have overstayed their welcome and need a place to crash on their way home.
Here’s one that exploded while eating a six-foot alligator:
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2005/10/05/python-bursts-after-trying-to-eat-gator/28439418007/
Visiting Florida from California, perhaps the biggest culture(?) shock I experienced was the fact there were alligators just chilling in the puddles along the edges of the highway.
Yeah, they're everywhere. They're not harmless but basically innocuous if you don't do something stupid. The southern extreme has crocodiles, I've never seen one down there and you do not want those around your house, more unpredictable.
It's actually one of the great success stories of the conservation movement. They were considered endangered until the late 80s, now they're "least concern" and basically reptilian raccoons or something.
Alligators range as far north as North Carolina and as far west as Texas, so they're not just a Florida thing. People golf alongside them throughout the South. Alligators love golf courses for some reason:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Im4mMFK4A
The use of URL shorteners on this subreddit is prohibited. Please repost your link without the use of a url shortener
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskAnAmerican) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I can understand being surprised that Texas has alligators, people think we're all desserts and cattle fields, but you didn't think Louisiana had them?
Gotta do what you’ve gotta do. It’s just part of life here. We have gators. A friends mom who grew up in south Florida has a habit of looking under her car any time she goes out to her car. Could be in her garage or a parking lot in a busy shopping center. She just checks for gators.
I was at work one time and there was a baby alligator chillin under my car. A customer who knew that it was my car came in and told me so the cook chased it off with a broom lol.
I walked in on a gator hanging out in a garage one time. I thought it was a very realistic statue until it opened its mouth. I just backed away, and it eventually left on its own.
I once parked in national forest to take a walk on the trail and capture some pictures of the flora. When I got back to my car, there was a gator sunbathing parallel to my car. I waited a bit, until some cars arrived, which caused the gator to wade into the pond.
Yes. If you have water around you probably have gators. I had to pull one out from under my sister’s car and throw it in the lake. I became an official Floridaman that day.
The first house I bought down here had a prairie lake as there was a gator hole right in my back yard. I used to ask girls if they wanted to see the alligator. It worked a lot. Sir ChompsALot was a great wingman.
It’s one of the many Floridathings you get used to as you become Floridaman.
Yes they are common. We coached our kids from a very young age that every body of water will have an alligator. If one snatches the dog then make like Elsa and let it go.
When I lived in the bayou/delta region of Louisiana, there were gators in basically any body of water. Directly across the street from my house (50 feet) was a old channel of the Bayou Des Allemands that was no longer connected to the main channel yet still held water, there was a 6-7 foot gator that lived in it. 500 feet down the road in the main channel of the bayou there were many more gators including some much larger. I’ve personally seen 7-8+ foot gators in the wild at less than 50 feet away, however we were more concerned about venomous snakes than the gators. More pets and farm animals are killed by snakes than gators. Local kids swam in the bayou without much concern about gators, you learn to be aware and avoid them.
My friends took me on the boat ride in South Carolina and gators were around their house, in the lake or connecting waterway. Buddy turned off the boat and let us just chill on the lake and we watched gators just chilling around us. My mom did not believe that gators live so close to the settlements, until I took her on boat ride in bayou and she was surprised to see so many of them.
They're fine so long as you don't do anything stupid around them. Mostly just live and let live, with an occasional tourist provided to our Reptilian overlords.
Yeah I don’t get it either. I have family in Louisiana and I’ve seen some gators driving around Florida. They’re like black bears out here - people talk about them like they’re giant raccoons. Like a nuisance but no big deal. But still scary as shit to me.
[then you see stories like this!](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna85899)
We have mountain lions very close to us in the hills, but they don’t venture down to our neighborhood. But it’d be crazy unsettling for me if they did.
> Yeah I don’t get it either. I have family in Louisiana and I’ve seen some gators driving around Florida.
[And they’re better than a lot of retirees down there](https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/01/84/90/40/1000_F_184904067_vAKsltA8DHG3WF3bhNtgH3XdXvFVdT3P.jpg).
I went with my grandmother once to visit my great uncle (her brother) who lived in Florida. I forget the name of the town but it was a little ways outside of Miami as we flew into Miami and drove about an hour to get to his house.
He had a really nice pool outside. On the second day there I go out to use it one afternoon and there is a gator in it. My uncle Elmer just grabs the pool skimmer and uses it to shoo the gator away so I can go swimming.
Any body of water found in the southern states and Texas you can assume has alligators. Even saltwater. Alligators can be found on the beaches occasionally.
Grew up in Florida.
As a rule, we are taught - if there is fresh water (not salty water) and it looks big enough to hold an alligator...assume there's one in it.
That rule pays off because inevitably, if there's a canal, a drainage pond, hell, even a puddle big enough.....there is often a gator in it.
I used to come home and there'd be a gator in my parking space, like *he* paid rent there, not me.
They are all over.
NOTE: IF YOU VISIT FLORIDA......DO NOT GO SWIMMING IN FRESH WATER, OKAY?
Honestly, they're mainly ambush hunters so not a threat if people use their brains.
You don't want to underestimate them, but lot of times they'll just be chilling.
Lived in sw Florida for 7 years never once saw an alligator and before people say anything. I spent plenty time outdoors all over the state. From middle of nowhere in the pan handle to Miami. I would go camping, mudding all the typical Florida things and still didn’t see one.. doesn’t mean they weren’t there though.
Haha! It’s sort of funny because my wife who isn’t from Florida can’t spot them either. I can spot them while driving and sort of point them out and she just doesn’t see them. Or she will just say that it’s not a gator. It’s just sort of a defense mechanism that you know what and where to look for them. I’m sure other areas have similar things.
LOL. I knew what video it was going to be before I clicked. I live in South Florida. I don't generally see alligators, but then again, I know people who have, and I wouldn't be surprised if I saw one.
And no way in hell would I go swimming in the lake.
Yeah it's common. There's lots and lots and lots of water in Florida -- lakes, rivers, canals, ponds. Periodically you read a story about someone who disappeared 8 years earlier without a trace and they finally found them in their car at the bottom of a canal or a pond.
My aunt's friend in Florida lived in a house in a retirement community 30 ft from a canal that had alligators in it. That's just how it is. Most aren't big enough to cause any real trouble.
Like this one? Someone saw a car in a retention pond on Maps and it ended up being occupied by someone who’d been missing for 22 years:
https://www.livescience.com/google-earth-submerged-car-missing-person.html
So I recently bought a house in Georgia. Not quite Florida, gator-wise, but more so than anywhere else I’ve lived. When we were looking at houses, we saw signs that said “no swimming, beware of alligators” around all the neighborhood ponds we saw. When we asked our realtor about them, she said “if there’s a body of water around here, I’m never gonna tell you there isn’t a gator in it. But if someone sees one, they generally call animal control quickly and get it out of there as fast as possible.”
Most people wouldn't touch them, but they are everywhere in Florida and if you own a home they *will* come onto your property at some point. Every single body of water will attract alligators, including swimming pools, ponds, and fountains. It's best to leave them be, or scare them off. They're just living their lives like they did for millions of years, they don't really want any trouble with humans.
Native Floridians on the other hand are another beast entirely.
Yeah, when we lived in Florida there were gators in the pond behind our house. It's not a big deal. Just don't go near them. They're not going to wander the neighborhood looking for a person to eat
I live in Louisiana. I’ve seen several alligators. There was one leisurely walking in the front of my neighborhood once. Animal control came and got him.
Gators in FL are just a fact of life. If there's a body of water big enough for a gator to be in it, there's a gator in it.
They're pretty chill and usually won't bother you unless you're a small child or a dog or cat.
They're all over the place. They stay in their place and we stay in ours. In savannah and charleston it was better to just assume there's an alligator in a body of water until proven otherwise. They don't bother humans either, unless you literally get up in one's face. The worst thing that happens is them eating dogs, which is awful. Keep your pets on a leash and fence your yard. You'll be fine
I live in a Texas suburb and we have alligators in our neighborhood "lakes" (really they are man-made retention ponds to help prevent flooding). The neighborhood has named the various gators and people will post pics when they wander away from the lakes. Mostly we are warned not to walk tiny children or pets near the gators or the edge of the water.
If you live near water. Especially if it is a newer development it maybe like this video. In the heart of Miami/Ft Lauderdale you won’t see this. If you go to the edges of the metro area where swamp starts then you see many.
There are canals all over the place but most have a grate somewhere that won’t allow complete free travel to something as big as a gator. Iguanas in the other hand are small and use the canals to spread everywhere.
I'm in the Upper Midwest, I figure gators in FL are like deer up here. They're around, (after all, they were here first) and you have to be aware of the hazards they may pose.
My grandmother lived by a lake in Florida, in a small neighborhood. A huge gator lived in the lake. We were not allowed to play in the lake, or play in the front yard (it was not fenced). She had a small yappy dog and she forgot to lock the dog door one night. The alligator ate it. It was caught on her security camera.
So yes, if there is a body of water it probably has at least one alligator in it. I mean, I've seen them at Disney World in Bay Lake. They are everywhere.
You can ask them to move out, but they probably won't listen. It might be discriminatory too, not allowing alligators to be in the neighborhood just because their teeth are differently shaped. Best to just live and let live.
lol yeah. Usually any body of water, [even a small neighborhood a pond or something,](https://youtube.com/shorts/iXkdy4Mh3Jk?si=Q8TY8Uzcn5qRCjfi) has at least one or two alligators in it. Just a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine posted a video of the FFWCC packing up 5 alligators that were all crossing the road like half a mile from my house. Like they alligators are okay, they just took them back to where they live. [This happened](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jX7JrEprKI) at a nature preserve pretty close to my house. We have multiple parks with large walking trails where alligators could just be chilling 12 inches away from you. [You can canoe/kayak/paddleboard right up close to them too](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAXKBWARHw). Anywho, most people who live here know to not feed them or mess with them and to avoid walking their dogs near ponds and lakes and 99.9% of the time there are no issues.
I’m in Florida’s neighboring state (Alabama) and have property on a lagoon in a beach town. We don’t see them often. It’s not like they’re social animals. But I’d say a neighbor sees one once a month. A couple of years ago, one swam up in the canal across the street and a neighbor’s dog went in after him. Luckily the dog escaped with a scratched up rear leg. Just so you know, I find it every bit as bizarre as you do.
I have a friend that lives close to the Everglades in Florida and works at a chain grocery store. Apparently the employees had to be told not to feed the alligator out back because then it wouldn't go away.
UMiami used to have a gator in the lake that was there for years. He was super chill and would just like to bake in the sun with the rest of us.
I think, maybe 2010, someone killed it and left it on the side of the lake.
I’m not sure exactly how they count them, but supposedly there are over a million Gators in Florida. It’s safe to assume that any and every body of water has a gator in it.
This! They may not always be visible but it’s safe to assume if your neighborhood has a lake ( which most communities do around here) it’s safe to assume you’re neighbors with a gator
👍 Newbies and visitors often ask how they should know whether there’s a gator in that pond/lake/ditch. Is it wet? That’s how you know. Stop playing fetch with your dog by throwing sticks in the water FFS.
My yard in ocala would flood everytime it rained. I walked outside one morning to see a 6 footer just chilling in my back yard puddle. I sat out there and smoked a cig and told him bye when I left. Dude was pretty chill. I used to joke everytime anyone spilled a drink that there'd be a gator in the puddle within 10 mins.
Lol yeah, they just pop up. It’s funny that you would talk to him though. I do the same thing with all of the lizards on my front porch. I watch them through the window and I give them all names.
I talk to any animal I see lol. I had an entire conversation with an iguana down in west palm beach. Then a raccoon came screaming in and murked him. 10/10 experience, I miss living in Florida lmao
I wish I had anoles where I live, they are fun lizards
More to the point, it is unsafe to assume there ***isn't*** a gator :)
As someone from a country that has no natural predators this blows my mind.
Haha! It’s just fairly normal to me. There’s actually a local business that adopted a blind gator. They dress her up, and you can take pictures with her. The owner picks her up and throws her over his shoulder to carry her around. Normal Floridaman stuff!
Tbh I’m from the US and it’s still kinda crazy to me 😂
😬 Would you like to borrow some? I can hook you up…got a few Burmese pythons down in the glades that have overstayed their welcome and need a place to crash on their way home. Here’s one that exploded while eating a six-foot alligator: https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2005/10/05/python-bursts-after-trying-to-eat-gator/28439418007/
Ewwww
Visiting Florida from California, perhaps the biggest culture(?) shock I experienced was the fact there were alligators just chilling in the puddles along the edges of the highway.
My parents think someone’s been feeding the one that lives near them. It came right up to my dad when he was taking a walk last week
Yeah, they're everywhere. They're not harmless but basically innocuous if you don't do something stupid. The southern extreme has crocodiles, I've never seen one down there and you do not want those around your house, more unpredictable. It's actually one of the great success stories of the conservation movement. They were considered endangered until the late 80s, now they're "least concern" and basically reptilian raccoons or something.
Alligators range as far north as North Carolina and as far west as Texas, so they're not just a Florida thing. People golf alongside them throughout the South. Alligators love golf courses for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Im4mMFK4A
They’re in Texas and Oklahoma too
Oklahoma?? That's pretty far inland for an alligator.
They get up to the extreme sw corner of tennessee, too
[удалено]
The use of URL shorteners on this subreddit is prohibited. Please repost your link without the use of a url shortener *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskAnAmerican) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Looks like you're right. I thought they stopped at the Mississippi. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/media/american-alligator-range-13371/
I can understand being surprised that Texas has alligators, people think we're all desserts and cattle fields, but you didn't think Louisiana had them?
Red Slough!
Its safe to assume every inland body of water in Florida has a gator in it. You get used to it.
Gotta do what you’ve gotta do. It’s just part of life here. We have gators. A friends mom who grew up in south Florida has a habit of looking under her car any time she goes out to her car. Could be in her garage or a parking lot in a busy shopping center. She just checks for gators.
I was at work one time and there was a baby alligator chillin under my car. A customer who knew that it was my car came in and told me so the cook chased it off with a broom lol.
Yes. I saw two during the 10 minute drive home from dinner.
I walked in on a gator hanging out in a garage one time. I thought it was a very realistic statue until it opened its mouth. I just backed away, and it eventually left on its own.
I once parked in national forest to take a walk on the trail and capture some pictures of the flora. When I got back to my car, there was a gator sunbathing parallel to my car. I waited a bit, until some cars arrived, which caused the gator to wade into the pond.
Yes. If you have water around you probably have gators. I had to pull one out from under my sister’s car and throw it in the lake. I became an official Floridaman that day. The first house I bought down here had a prairie lake as there was a gator hole right in my back yard. I used to ask girls if they wanted to see the alligator. It worked a lot. Sir ChompsALot was a great wingman. It’s one of the many Floridathings you get used to as you become Floridaman.
Yes they are common. We coached our kids from a very young age that every body of water will have an alligator. If one snatches the dog then make like Elsa and let it go.
Having family down there, it's not like every house has its own pet alligator in a pond, but quite common.
When I lived in the bayou/delta region of Louisiana, there were gators in basically any body of water. Directly across the street from my house (50 feet) was a old channel of the Bayou Des Allemands that was no longer connected to the main channel yet still held water, there was a 6-7 foot gator that lived in it. 500 feet down the road in the main channel of the bayou there were many more gators including some much larger. I’ve personally seen 7-8+ foot gators in the wild at less than 50 feet away, however we were more concerned about venomous snakes than the gators. More pets and farm animals are killed by snakes than gators. Local kids swam in the bayou without much concern about gators, you learn to be aware and avoid them.
My friends took me on the boat ride in South Carolina and gators were around their house, in the lake or connecting waterway. Buddy turned off the boat and let us just chill on the lake and we watched gators just chilling around us. My mom did not believe that gators live so close to the settlements, until I took her on boat ride in bayou and she was surprised to see so many of them.
They're fine so long as you don't do anything stupid around them. Mostly just live and let live, with an occasional tourist provided to our Reptilian overlords.
Yeah I don’t get it either. I have family in Louisiana and I’ve seen some gators driving around Florida. They’re like black bears out here - people talk about them like they’re giant raccoons. Like a nuisance but no big deal. But still scary as shit to me. [then you see stories like this!](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna85899) We have mountain lions very close to us in the hills, but they don’t venture down to our neighborhood. But it’d be crazy unsettling for me if they did.
> Yeah I don’t get it either. I have family in Louisiana and I’ve seen some gators driving around Florida. [And they’re better than a lot of retirees down there](https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/01/84/90/40/1000_F_184904067_vAKsltA8DHG3WF3bhNtgH3XdXvFVdT3P.jpg).
I went with my grandmother once to visit my great uncle (her brother) who lived in Florida. I forget the name of the town but it was a little ways outside of Miami as we flew into Miami and drove about an hour to get to his house. He had a really nice pool outside. On the second day there I go out to use it one afternoon and there is a gator in it. My uncle Elmer just grabs the pool skimmer and uses it to shoo the gator away so I can go swimming.
Any body of water found in the southern states and Texas you can assume has alligators. Even saltwater. Alligators can be found on the beaches occasionally.
Grew up in Florida. As a rule, we are taught - if there is fresh water (not salty water) and it looks big enough to hold an alligator...assume there's one in it. That rule pays off because inevitably, if there's a canal, a drainage pond, hell, even a puddle big enough.....there is often a gator in it. I used to come home and there'd be a gator in my parking space, like *he* paid rent there, not me. They are all over. NOTE: IF YOU VISIT FLORIDA......DO NOT GO SWIMMING IN FRESH WATER, OKAY?
Except for Lake Jesup. That one is great for swimming since there isn't a lot of boat traffic and very few homes on it.
I’m an Aussie who lives in America and they scare me lmao.
Honestly, they're mainly ambush hunters so not a threat if people use their brains. You don't want to underestimate them, but lot of times they'll just be chilling.
I mean I think it’s more the unknown they could be lurking even in your backyard or get your dog lol.
I mean....they're not quite as bad as crocodiles at least?
Yeah my mum says they’re the cute version of crocodiles lol.
I wouldn't say "cute" but I get what you mean lol. If anything, caimans are the cute version of crocodiles.
Lived in sw Florida for 7 years never once saw an alligator and before people say anything. I spent plenty time outdoors all over the state. From middle of nowhere in the pan handle to Miami. I would go camping, mudding all the typical Florida things and still didn’t see one.. doesn’t mean they weren’t there though.
Lol how many saw you though!
I said that lmao
Haha! It’s sort of funny because my wife who isn’t from Florida can’t spot them either. I can spot them while driving and sort of point them out and she just doesn’t see them. Or she will just say that it’s not a gator. It’s just sort of a defense mechanism that you know what and where to look for them. I’m sure other areas have similar things.
Meanwhile, I visit my parents for a week or two at most every year and see at least a few on every single visit.
That astounds me.
Interesting. I seen gators in Florida a few times. From the Keys and up to Amelia Island.
LOL. I knew what video it was going to be before I clicked. I live in South Florida. I don't generally see alligators, but then again, I know people who have, and I wouldn't be surprised if I saw one. And no way in hell would I go swimming in the lake.
Yeah it's common. There's lots and lots and lots of water in Florida -- lakes, rivers, canals, ponds. Periodically you read a story about someone who disappeared 8 years earlier without a trace and they finally found them in their car at the bottom of a canal or a pond. My aunt's friend in Florida lived in a house in a retirement community 30 ft from a canal that had alligators in it. That's just how it is. Most aren't big enough to cause any real trouble.
Like this one? Someone saw a car in a retention pond on Maps and it ended up being occupied by someone who’d been missing for 22 years: https://www.livescience.com/google-earth-submerged-car-missing-person.html
Yep. Exactly like that one.
I hope so. I don’t mean that maliciously.
So I recently bought a house in Georgia. Not quite Florida, gator-wise, but more so than anywhere else I’ve lived. When we were looking at houses, we saw signs that said “no swimming, beware of alligators” around all the neighborhood ponds we saw. When we asked our realtor about them, she said “if there’s a body of water around here, I’m never gonna tell you there isn’t a gator in it. But if someone sees one, they generally call animal control quickly and get it out of there as fast as possible.”
Most people wouldn't touch them, but they are everywhere in Florida and if you own a home they *will* come onto your property at some point. Every single body of water will attract alligators, including swimming pools, ponds, and fountains. It's best to leave them be, or scare them off. They're just living their lives like they did for millions of years, they don't really want any trouble with humans. Native Floridians on the other hand are another beast entirely.
Yeah, when we lived in Florida there were gators in the pond behind our house. It's not a big deal. Just don't go near them. They're not going to wander the neighborhood looking for a person to eat
My father in law has a home on a golf course with little waterway between. There's an alligator in his back yard mist mornings
They're less common in cities (or at least better at hiding).
I live in Louisiana. I’ve seen several alligators. There was one leisurely walking in the front of my neighborhood once. Animal control came and got him.
Gators in FL are just a fact of life. If there's a body of water big enough for a gator to be in it, there's a gator in it. They're pretty chill and usually won't bother you unless you're a small child or a dog or cat.
They're all over the place. They stay in their place and we stay in ours. In savannah and charleston it was better to just assume there's an alligator in a body of water until proven otherwise. They don't bother humans either, unless you literally get up in one's face. The worst thing that happens is them eating dogs, which is awful. Keep your pets on a leash and fence your yard. You'll be fine
I live in a Texas suburb and we have alligators in our neighborhood "lakes" (really they are man-made retention ponds to help prevent flooding). The neighborhood has named the various gators and people will post pics when they wander away from the lakes. Mostly we are warned not to walk tiny children or pets near the gators or the edge of the water.
If you live near water. Especially if it is a newer development it maybe like this video. In the heart of Miami/Ft Lauderdale you won’t see this. If you go to the edges of the metro area where swamp starts then you see many. There are canals all over the place but most have a grate somewhere that won’t allow complete free travel to something as big as a gator. Iguanas in the other hand are small and use the canals to spread everywhere.
I'm in the Upper Midwest, I figure gators in FL are like deer up here. They're around, (after all, they were here first) and you have to be aware of the hazards they may pose.
My grandmother lived by a lake in Florida, in a small neighborhood. A huge gator lived in the lake. We were not allowed to play in the lake, or play in the front yard (it was not fenced). She had a small yappy dog and she forgot to lock the dog door one night. The alligator ate it. It was caught on her security camera. So yes, if there is a body of water it probably has at least one alligator in it. I mean, I've seen them at Disney World in Bay Lake. They are everywhere.
If there's a pond there's a gator so yes
You can ask them to move out, but they probably won't listen. It might be discriminatory too, not allowing alligators to be in the neighborhood just because their teeth are differently shaped. Best to just live and let live.
lol yeah. Usually any body of water, [even a small neighborhood a pond or something,](https://youtube.com/shorts/iXkdy4Mh3Jk?si=Q8TY8Uzcn5qRCjfi) has at least one or two alligators in it. Just a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine posted a video of the FFWCC packing up 5 alligators that were all crossing the road like half a mile from my house. Like they alligators are okay, they just took them back to where they live. [This happened](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jX7JrEprKI) at a nature preserve pretty close to my house. We have multiple parks with large walking trails where alligators could just be chilling 12 inches away from you. [You can canoe/kayak/paddleboard right up close to them too](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAXKBWARHw). Anywho, most people who live here know to not feed them or mess with them and to avoid walking their dogs near ponds and lakes and 99.9% of the time there are no issues.
I’m in Florida’s neighboring state (Alabama) and have property on a lagoon in a beach town. We don’t see them often. It’s not like they’re social animals. But I’d say a neighbor sees one once a month. A couple of years ago, one swam up in the canal across the street and a neighbor’s dog went in after him. Luckily the dog escaped with a scratched up rear leg. Just so you know, I find it every bit as bizarre as you do.
As someone who was born and grew up in Florida, yes it is that common. Any type of fresh water you just assume there is a gator in it.
If they could be exterminated as easily as the buffalo, they would have been. There's just too much swamp.
I have a friend that lives close to the Everglades in Florida and works at a chain grocery store. Apparently the employees had to be told not to feed the alligator out back because then it wouldn't go away.
You leave them alone and they leave you alone. Just something we are raised with in Florida.
r/florida
UMiami used to have a gator in the lake that was there for years. He was super chill and would just like to bake in the sun with the rest of us. I think, maybe 2010, someone killed it and left it on the side of the lake.
UF has multiple gators in Lake Alice on campus still lol.