What in Heaven's name has the dying, or nearly dead, fashion of using alligator skins for shoes or for handbags or whatever got to do with going out to see the Walt Disney World in Florida? Well, just this. Thirty years ago alligators were on the brink of extinction in the State of Florida, if not elsewhere, because of the huge demand world-wide for their skins. That, accord ing to The Orlando Sentinel of March 22nd has had its unfortunate side, for alligators are now proliferating to such an extent that they may have reached the million mark in the State.
Annually, the State kills about 5,000 of what the newspaper calls "nuisance alligators". "Nuisance" because people are warned not to walk their dogs near water where the gators, as they are referred to, lurk, and may snatch at your pet. A dog is said to be about the size of an alligator's natural prey. What they do is seize the unfortunate bowler and drag it under water until it drowns. Then eat it. This is no rarity. Since 1948, there have been 225 confirmed attacks - say 40 a year - with eight fatalities. No wonder the State also authorised annual hunts in the last decade. Typically, says The Orlando Sentinel, a human is too large to tempt an alligator, but a small child wading or a dog swimming and splashing near the shore, could attract the killer's interest. A biologist, Kent Vliet, a Professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, says that many alligator bites on humans are mistakes. Exceptions occur most often when an alligator has been fed by humans. "This creates a dangerous situation," Vliet said, for "the alligators come to associate humans with food."
So you can see why feeding alligators is illegal in Florida. Attacks on humans, says the newspaper, are rare. Even the 225 attacks since 1948, when records were first kept, makes them rarer than lightning strikes or shark attacks. And, as a friend writes from Florida, having gone out with her family to see Disneyland and generally enjoy the climate: isn't it lovely that we can walk along our own lakesides and rivers, with children and dogs, and not have to think of alligators?