THE REDLANDS, Fla. — The springtime drama took place along the sunny lake shore at Jones Trailer Park west of Miami, where the young Labrador belonging to the man in Lot 27 loved to play.
Wanda Chambers didn't witness the attack. But she saw the 7-foot alligator amble by her two-bedroom mobile home afterward, the brown dog's lifeless form clamped in its powerful jaws.
"The gator ... was swinging it up in the air and just tearing it apart," the 55-year-old Chambers said. "Now the gator is back by my dock, laying on the bank." She is afraid the reptile's next victim will not be a pet, but one of the young children who like to sail toy boats on the lake.
It's May, the height of the mating season for Florida's alligators. And because of hormonal secretions, the walnut-size brains of these giant reptiles are filled with thoughts of love. Males have become meaner and more competitive, driving thousands of rival suitors out of the Everglades and backwoods and into more populated areas--people's yards, garages, carports, swimming pools, and neighborhood lakes.
"A lot of people say: 'Cherry blossoms in Washington, it's spring,' " said Todd Hardwick, a professional wild animal trapper and native Floridian. "I say: 'Alligators in the driveway, it's spring. Lock up your poodles.' "
In the checkered saga of the Sunshine State's fast-paced growth, it is hard to find a more emblematic story than man's conflict with the alligator. For as long as 4 million years, Alligator Mississipiensis and its ancestors have dwelt in these locales. As for the humans, many in Florida literally got here just last year.
With an estimated 1,000 new residents each day on average, more and more homes are going up in areas that traditionally were alligator habitat. During mating time, Floridians consequently are more likely to find themselves face to face with a cold-blooded predatory beast that is one of nature's most perfect killing machines.
"What used to be the basking areas, where alligators would lay out in the sun, or nesting areas 10 years ago are now golf courses, people's backyards, swimming pools," said Louis Guillette, a professor of zoology at the University of Florida in Gainesville and a gator specialist.
Humans should remember that, historically speaking, they are the trespassers, Guillette said. "I'm always amazed that people come to Florida and build a brand-new house on the side of a lake, and they're shocked the first time they put their boat in the water and want to go water skiing, and there are alligators."
