Don't pet the alligators...

CNN ran a story about a Florida jogger who was killed by an alligator earlier this week. Yikes! This makes the local mountain lions seem like nothing.

- SD

Alligator kills Florida jogger near canal

An alligator grabbed and killed a Florida woman who disappeared while
jogging near a canal, a medical examiner determined Thursday.
Construction workers found the woman's dismembered body floating
Wednesday in a canal in Sunrise, a northwest suburb of Fort
Lauderdale. An autopsy showed she died of bleeding and shock from
alligator bites. "The alligator attacked her and basically amputated
her arms, bit her on the leg and back and pulled her into the water,"
said Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward County medical examiner, who
performed the autopsy. "She died extremely fast. By the time she was
pulled into the water, she was already dead." Perper said the woman,
28-year-old Yovy Suarez Jimenez, had been very close to the canal's
edge when the alligator bit her, because her body showed no signs of
having been dragged. Relatives said the victim had gone jogging on
Tuesday evening along a bicycle path near the canal. Wildlife
officers said no one saw the attack. "The way it happened, we just
don't know," said Dani Moschella, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish
& Wildlife Conservation Commission. Wildlife officers and commercial
trappers were still trying to find the alligator, which was estimated
to be 8 to 10 feet long, based on the woman's injuries. If captured,
it will be killed, they said. Alligator attacks are relatively rare.
Suarez Jimenez's death was the 18th fatal attack in Florida since the
state began keeping records in the 1940s, Moschella said.