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Moncks Corner, SC – According to authorities, a woman that was walking a trail in Moncks Corner was bitten by an alligator Monday afternoon.

Officials say the attack happened at Cypress Gardens when the woman was walking a trail with her husband. Investigators say a 5 to 6-foot alligator bit the woman’s hand and leg.

Department of Natural Resources officials are searching for the gator but so far there haven’t been any sightings. Guests at Cypress Gardens are warned about the possibility of seeing animals and are told to keep their distance, but park officials say this time of year it is not unusual to see a dangeous gator.

Director of Cypress Gardens Dwight Williams says,”One of the attractions of Cypress Gardens is the possibility of seeing wild alligators. We don’t know how many are in the swamp. On a day like today, it is typical to see alligators sunning themselves beside the swamp as spring comes.”

Berkeley County took over control of Cypress Gardens in 1996 and officials say there have not been any alligator attacks here since that time. The victim has been taken to MUSC.

Authorities say the woman was able to walk out of the park on her own. Officials don’t believe her injuries to be life threatening.

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SAO PAULO – A 13-foot (4-meter) alligator has reportedly attacked and killed a girl who was swimming in a Brazilian jungle river.

Firefighters tell local media that 11-year-old Gigliane do Nascimento Bira was playing with friends in shallow water in the northern state of Rondonia, in the Amazon region.

The Agencia Estado news service says the reptile was found about 300 feet (100 meters) from the site of Sunday afternoon’s attack. Authorities shot it dead so her body could be recovered.

Calls to Rondonia authorities were not immediately answered Monday.

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This is an old article, but a very interesting one that explains how a growing human population leads to more wildlife attacks.

Annmarie Campbell lived in Tennessee, but she grew up in central Florida, and she had vacationed before in the rustic two-bedroom cabin on a creek in Florida’s Ocala National Forest. Two weeks ago, she was there again with a few members of her extended family. That Sunday the aspiring artist, 23, slipped into the water to snorkel her way back to the cabin. A few minutes later, her former stepfather’s wife Jackie Barrett left the sandbar where they had been sunning themselves and followed Campbell. The young woman was nowhere to be found. Barrett grabbed a kayak and paddled downstream in search of her. No luck. So Barrett headed back toward the cabin–to find her husband Mark and a family friend frantically gouging at the eyes of an 11 1/2-ft. alligator and prying at its jaws, firmly clamped on Campbell’s upper body. By the time the creature finally let go, it was too late. Campbell was dead, with massive head trauma and lungs filled with water.

The incident would have been shocking by itself. But it was not the only one. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission records an average of about seven alligator attacks every year, yet they are rarely fatal: since 1948, only 17 humans had been confirmed killed by the huge reptiles. But in the five days leading up to Campbell’s death, two other women had been partly eaten by alligators. Three deadly assaults in the space of a week seemed like too much of a coincidence. Floridians, who tend to be casual about their state reptile, were suddenly hypervigilant to a danger that seemed to be lurking in every body of freshwater bigger than a bathtub. Calls to hotlines skyrocketed, and all over the state people were asking themselves what could possibly be going on.

The circumstances of each death offered no obvious clues. They happened in different parts of the state: Yovy Suarez Jimenez, 28, was killed in Sunrise, just north of Miami, and Judy Cooper, 43, was found 20 miles north of St. Petersburg. Although nobody witnessed either attack, authorities believe that Jimenez was sitting at the edge of a canal, dangling her feet in the water, when she was seized by an alligator and dragged in. And there is no reason to believe that Cooper was swimming.

In short, the unusual spate of fatal attacks may have been a ghastly coincidence–but that doesn’t mean they were entirely random. According to wildlife experts, several factors may have recently upped the odds of alligator aggression. For one thing, this is the time of year when the reptiles emerge from cold-weather quiescence and enter the mating season. That makes them more territorial and more aggressive than normal. Beyond that, the state has been experiencing an extended drought over the past several years, shrinking the animals’ natural habitat and forcing them to forage in areas where humans have created ponds, canals and swimming pools.

There are also more alligators around today than ever because of the reptile’s 20-year stint on the federal endangered-species list. Back in 1967, when it was formally listed, trapping for meat and hides had reduced the alligator population in Florida to no more than 300,000. Now there are 1 million to 2 million. At the same time, the state’s human population has exploded. As a result, development is pushing into wetlands that were once pure, alligator-friendly wilderness, and agriculture is draining huge swaths of alligator habitat. Everglades National Park is just one-seventh the size of the historic Everglades swampland, forcing the animals to share territory that humans consider their own.

It’s a familiar story. In the American West, mountain lions are getting squeezed, and lethal attacks by the big cats have become more frequent. In the Northeast, it is black bears, foraging in suburban backyards. In Florida, it’s alligators. And unlike cougars and bears, which are rarely spotted, alligators are everywhere and are almost always docile. Along a path just inside Everglades park’s Shark Valley entrance, for example, alligators loll along the bank of the adjacent canal, as uninterested in the people as they are in the bugs that swirl overhead. Yet park employees have seen tourists run over alligators with bikes and wheelchairs, throw rocks at them and stab them with sticks. People even put kids on the backs of the creatures for a gator photo op. “The alligator isn’t the problem. It’s humans,” says park naturalist Maria Thomson. “We’re pushing them to the limit.”

And every so often, they push back. Whenever an alligator kills a human, the state sends out trappers to catch and kill it. The animals responsible for the three recent attacks have all been trapped. Parts of Jimenez were found in the belly of a 9 1/2-ft. alligator, Cooper’s arm and hand were recovered from an 8 1/2-footer, and Campbell’s killer was identified by scratches around its eye. But it’s not as if those particular alligators were more dangerous than most, and destroying them won’t prevent future attacks. Officials say the best ways to avoid becoming dinner for an alligator are not to feed the animals, which can lead them to lose their natural wariness; to stay away from the water’s edge at dusk and dawn, when the creatures tend to hunt; and to be generally wary in and around the water. “A little gator common sense,” says state-certified trapper Todd Hardwick, “takes you a long way.”

Even so, people are still going to run afoul of alligators. And while three deaths in a week establish a benchmark of horror that probably won’t be repeated soon, encounters between alligators and people are bound to increase. “We’re putting our lives on the line,” says Hardwick, “so you can have a safe backyard.”

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When Sgt. Adam Rush was charged by an alligator while out fishing on Blue Creek on March 27, he knew it wasn’t his best day.

In fact, it was the worst day that any fisherman had in all of 2009.

Rush, a Camp Lejeune Marine, was named Outdoor Life Magazine’s “Unluckiest Angler of the Year” according to a “Best and Worst of 2009” list published on the magazine’s Web site.

The post giving Rush the dubious award referenced how Rush was forced to call 911 when a nine-foot alligator eyeing Rush’s fresh catch of largemouth bass left the river bank and made a beeline for his 10-foot boat.

Rush defended himself by hitting the creature in the head with an oar, but then found himself stranded with a dead engine and a broken oar. Game wardens arrived on the scene, brought him to safety and then issued him tickets for having undersized fish and no boat registration.

Rush paid $121 in court costs and a $50 fine for the violation, Rush said last week.

“I was kind of in the wrong about keeping a fish that was too small, but that was the furthest thing from my mind,” Rush remembered. “I was pretty much caught red-handed by the game warden, I guess you could say, with having a fish that was half an inch too small.”

Among the 13 other items on Outdoor Life’s “Best and Worst” list include “The Barney Fife Award,” “Worst Gun Thief” and “Best Dog Owner of 2009.”

The magazine didn’t contact him to let him know about the recognition, Rush said — it didn’t need to.

“My dad reads a lot of outdoor stuff. He called me about two days later and said, ‘Hey, did you get attacked by an alligator?’” he said.

Rush said the Marines he works with on base call him “Crocodile Dundee,” and the base game warden asked him if the story was true.

Rush’s run-in with the law hasn’t inspired him to change his system for sizing up the fish he catches.

“I’ll be honest with you: I use the same system I did before. If it fits on the top of my (14-inch) tacklebox, then I’m good to go,” he said.

The incident also hasn’t made him less eager to participate in outdoor activities. Rush said that three days after the alligator attack, he was back on the water — just a little more careful.

“This time I went with an extra battery on the boat,” he said.

Staff of Outdoor Life did not return requests for comment.

This is an old story.

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OSTEEN, Fla., March 22— A trapper found the body of a 3-year-old boy in Lake Ashby this morning and then, with three shotgun blasts, killed the 11-foot alligator that was pushing the child through the water.

The boy, Adam Trevor Binford, disappeared on Friday afternoon as he played in the lake’s shallow waters with his 8-year-old brother, Evan, and a dog. The authorities suspected that a large alligator had grabbed Adam from the knee-deep waters of the 3,200-acre lake near Orlando, but it was not until the discovery this morning that those fears were confirmed.

That is when Lucas Curtis, an alligator trapper under contract with the state, who had joined in an all-night search for Adam, spotted the large reptile slowly pushing the body through shallow waters about a mile from were the boy had vanished.

State officials said that if an alligator’s prey was too large to consume whole, the animal will use its snout to push it ahead to keep it from other predators.

After killing the alligator, Mr. Curtis pulled the boy’s body and the reptile on board his small boat. Officials said they had confirmed that the alligator had killed the boy.

”All we’re saying is that body parts were found inside” the animal, said Lieut. Joy Hill, a spokeswoman for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission.

Adam’s mother, Lorri Binford, 31, of New Smyrna Beach, told the authorities that she had heard a splash and turned around to see her son was gone.

The authorities said the alligator might have been attracted to the shore by the dog, which is the perfect size for the reptile’s prey.

”Usually an animal the size of a raccoon is about the typical size for a gator that big,” Lieutenant Hill said.

The incident occurred at a picnic area in a Volusia County park, and Lieutenant Hill said that over the years picnickers might have inadvertently emboldened the alligator.

”I feel that, since he was playing near a picnic area, this alligator has been fed by people in the past,” Lieutenant Hill said. Feeding alligators is illegal, she said, and causes the animals to lose their fear of people and come closer to shore.

Ms. Hill said the alligator had probably grabbed the boy and rolled underneath the water until the child drowned.

Trappers searched the lake early this morning, to find and kill any alligators more than eight feet long. Alligators of 10 feet or more are known to live in the lake, which reaches seven feet at its deepest point.

The boys were wading in a shallow area filled with plant life, a ”perfect alligator feeding habitat,” Lieutenant Hill said. They were 75 feet away from an area that is used for swimming in the summer even though alligators are known to live by the lake.

State officials are worried that the attack will cause an unjustified panic throughout the state.

”It’s extremely rare that these attacks take place,” Lieutenant Hill said. She warned against feeding alligators and added, ”Do not walk dogs along the shore of any inland waterway, lake or river.”

Ms. Hill said the alligator attack was 226th since records were started in 1948. Adam is the youngest alligator victim on record in Florida.

The last deadly alligator attack in Florida occurred in October 1993 when a 70-year-old woman, the oldest victim on record, was killed in Sumter County.

”Obviously there is a lot of grief right now,” said Capt. Randy Burnsed of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. ”The family at least has their son back. It’s a horrible tragedy.”

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Officials believe they have found an alligator that escaped from a wildlife officer who brought the animal to his daughter’s school for show and tell.

Stan Kirkland, a spokesman for the Florida wildlife commission, says officials think the 5-foot alligator is in a Panhandle pond. Authorities weren’t able to capture the gator Friday.

Searchers scoured a wooded area surrounding the school Friday afternoon after the alligator jumped out of the man’s vehicle with its mouth taped shut.

Kirkland says alligators have “amazing” jumping ability and that allowed it to escape.

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Bob Schenck waded through the leech-filled swamp, creeping closer to the alligator.

“It was waiting, aggressive and ready to attack,” Schenck said today. When the moment was right, he pounced, maneuvering around the 5-foot reptile’s open jaws as he subdued it on Sunday.

Schenck with alligator

Schenk wasn’t in Africa, or even Florida. He was tangling with the stray 50-pound reptile in a dirty drainage ditch behind a Fall River mall.The gator was spotted several times Sunday near Route 24 in Fall River, according to authorities. Animal control officers and Schenck, who owns a pet store in the city, responded about 4:30 p.m. after a police officer reported a sighting, said Cynthia Berard, Fall River’s animal control supervisor.

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A 77-year-old man lost his arm below the elbow Thursday when he was attacked by an alligator while playing golf on Fripp Island.

The man, the father of a Fripp Island property owner, was playing the 11th hole of the island’s Ocean Creek Golf Course at about 3 p.m. when the attack occurred. The victim was leaning down to pick up his ball when a 10-foot long alligator grabbed his arm, said Kate Hines, general manager of the Fripp Island Property Owners Association.

Hines said the alligator dragged the man into a nearby pond and went into a series of “death rolls,” a technique the reptile uses to tear apart its food. The man lost his arm in the struggle.

The man’s golf buddies were able to free him from the alligator’s grasp and called 911. They kept an eye on the alligator until workers from Tracks Wildlife Control in Beaufort arrived, Hines said.

The victim, visiting family on the island, was taken to Beaufort Memorial Hospital.Tracks workers killed the alligator and performed a necropsy at the scene to remove the man’s arm from the animal’s digestive track, Hines said.

The arm was stored in a cooler in the hopes of re-attaching it. The victim was flown at about 5:30 p.m. to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. His condition was unknown late Thursday night.

There have been 10 confirmed alligator attacks in the past 25 years in South Carolina, according to state’s Department of Natural Resources. DNR estimates that 100,000 to 200,000 American alligators live along South Carolina’s coasts.

Thursday’s attack could have been caused by any number of factors, said Joe Maffo, owner of Critter Management, a Hilton Head Island business specializing in alligator removal.

“It could have been a mother protecting her brood, this alligator may have been fed before by people or it could have been a dominance thing and the alligator felt he was trespassing,” Maffo said. “These kinds of attacks are very, very unusual and very, very unfortunate. It’s sad.”

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Texas-born Simon Hughes, 5, doesn’t look intimidating. But put a gun in his hands and pit him against an 800-pound alligator and it’s a different story.

Simon’s been training to handle a gun since he was just 4, his dad told MyFOXHouston — and it’s a good thing, too, or else he could’ve gotten hurt by the mega-gator that wound up on the Hughes family ranch.

The huge alligator bit into a baited hook in a marsh on the property, coming face-to-face with Simon. The boy reacted with lightning speed, grabbing his gun and shooting the reptile in the head.

“It come out, the biggest alligator I’ve ever seen,” Simon told MyFOXHouston. “He did his death roll.”

The reptile was nearly 20 times the 3-foot, 44-pound boy’s size. It didn’t survive the shooting.

Click here for video.

His dad Scott Hughes said there’s a reason he started training his son, who is in kindergarten, to shoot guns at such an early age.

“Everything on the ranch will either bite you or stick you,” he told MyFOXHouston.

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CLEARWATER, FL — Authorities say a Clearwater woman walking her dog by a lake was bitten by an 8-foot alligator but managed to escape.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reports that 48-year-old Diane Blackwood was just a few feet from the lake Monday afternoon when she noticed a swirl in the water. The alligator attacked, and her dog ran away.

Blackwood says the gator clamped down on her left calf and began pulling her toward the water. She was able to jab the animal in the eye with her thumb, which gave her a chance to get away.

Blackwood was taken to a nearby hospital where she was treated for the bite.

Trappers caught an alligator Tuesday and were able to match its bite to Blackwood’s injury.

The alligator was killed, and its meat and hide will be sold.

©2009 Associated Press