If Ranger Jim is allowed to be serious for just a moment, I'll offer a few serious comments about critters generally and alligators/snakes specifically.
- Wild animals are not your friends. They're wild. Leave them alone, and they'll leave you alone.
- Snakes - watch where you step, don't stick your hands into bushes, under logs, etc, and if you see a snake...see #1 above. The overwhelming majority of venomous snakebites are on the fingers. That should tell us something.
- Alligators in the wild (where I work) are docile if left alone. But don't forget that they are top-level predators. In venues where lots of people are (especially a place like WDW), you can rest assured that some moron has fed them. Alligators who are fed associate people with food, and eventually become very aggressive. Hence, "a fed animal is a dead animal."
If you are at WDW and you are
lucky enough to see a snake, alligator, river otter, deer, mermaid, etc -- just enjoy the moment. Leave them alone and enjoy their wildness and the uniqueness of the experience that you would never have had at home. Palmetto bugs (our state bird), not so much...but they are an important part of the whole system of which we are only a small part.
