Free Republic

A woman has shot an alligator that came into her home and attacked her dog. When the reptile came into the lanai of her home east of Bradenton Saturday and attacked her golden retriever, Frey went and got her gun. After Frey and her daughter managed to push the gator out of the lanai through the dog door, she blasted away at it four times. The alligator barely bled from gunshots to the neck and shoulder, Frey said, and wildlife officer put it back in the lake. The deputy gave Frey a warning citation for hunting without a license.

State wildlife officials field a flood of calls about alligators in the wake of recent fatal gator attacks... As news of fatal alligator attacks spread throughout Florida and the nation, operators at the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program in Okeechobee are swamped. Operators have stayed late this week to handle the flood of phone calls. They logged 225 calls on Monday, more than double the number of calls they answered a year ago. ''It was nonstop,'' said biologist Lindsey Hord, the program's coordinator. ``As soon as they hung up with one person, they answered another call.'' The call volume increased last...

Worried callers overwhelmed the state's nuisance alligator hot line Monday as the national media seized on the news that three women had likely met their deaths in the reptiles' jaws in less than a week. The outcry started Wednesday when a 9-foot gator pulled 28-year-old jogger Yovy Suarez Jimenez into a Broward County canal. Trappers found Suarez's arms in the gator's belly when they captured it Saturday. On Sunday, friends and family pried the body of 23-year-old snorkeler Annemarie Campbell from an alligator's jaws in a lake south of Gainesville, and officials recovered the mauled body of 43-year-old Judy Cooper...

"There are increasing indications that the situation in New Orleans may be worse than Americans are being told. TV outlets abroad are reportedly showing video of large numbers of floating bodies, and just as the US media did not show people jumping from windows in the World Trade Center on 911, it may be that we're being spared the worst. Russian and Chinese intelligence analysts are calling it a "dead city." Some reports estimate that as many as 50,000 people may be dead. It may be impossible to get an accurate count of the dead because alligators are devouring the...