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Heather Sellers
Women in Tampa Talking About Alligators

Well the babies are super cute. I wanted so badly to raise a few on our lanai. In the end we did not. You know the mortality rate out there is incredibly high. Hungry males, eat their offspring. But the big eyes on the juveniles, those little grins . . . they’re just so stinkin’ cute!

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Our neighbor lady from Long Island feeds them chicken, tossing chicken out in the swamp and you know the swamp comes to the edge of our pools. Finally, one night my husband went off on her. That’s how people get eaten! Y’all stop feeding them! He pretty much lost his mind.

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I was out walking with my husband. I noticed one of those white plastic bags from Publix floating in the pond by the fountain. I said, That’s a shame, trash, in this beautiful place. We got closer. It wasn’t a bag. He said, It’s a large plastic bag. I said, Well, no, that is the hind end of a deer. He didn’t believe me. Then we saw the gator, medium size, I would say five-foot, circling, eyes all big with those straight-up pupils launching out of its head—oh they know when you are close by. They always know where we are. It circled and circled around the piece of deer floating there, all snapping jaws at us, This is mine! Stay back! All mine! Yes, buddy. Do people here not understand the danger? Do they not know about the death roll?

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