In Palmetto, a 7-foot alligator crawls through a doggy door and
greets a woman in her guest bedroom. Up in New Port Richey, a
beagle barks at a 10-foot gator in the family pool. At the
Gainesville Golf and Country Club, another 10-footer gnaws the
front bumper of a police car. It’s a typical stretch of warm
days in Florida. Energized by the heat, the official state
reptile roams: courting and mating, laying eggs, exploring, and
generally ignoring all boundaries between itself and its human
neighbors. What is the value of preserving wildlife that, by its
very definition, is unpredictable and potentially dangerous?
Their exploits beg the question. Florida has long wrestled with
its strange, dual responsibility: to protect its human residents
while preserving a native ecological treasure with prehistoric
teeth and a hunger to match. Life-and-death conflicts between
alligators and residents span the history of the state. In the
late 1800s and early 1900s, pioneering settlers and tourists in
the rambunctious wetla