Oh, yeah! My neighborhood had a lot of feral cats. Last February around three am I the morning I spotted a HUGE coyote trotting nonchalantly down my street. I thought it was a wolf at first, but realized it was some kind of hybrid. Twenty percent of eastern coyotes have wolf dna, and coyotes will interbreed with dogs. I knew they were on the outskirts of town, I have often heard them, but this was the first one I saw in the middle of town. Some of the feral survived, most did not.

I've heard the coyotes yipping here, more in the winter months when my windows are open, they do it when emergency sirens are going, I think it bothers them, but it is clearly different than regular dogs. There is lots of wooded natural area around the huge Lake Jesup here and so we have it all, coyotes, bears, fox, deer, and bobcats, but so far no one has seen one of those big pythons...thank goodness.

We have all those animals here, and in town! I saw bear tracks in a local park by the lake, and seeing deer are a common occurrence. Foxes are everywhere. I don't see bobcats very often, they are secretive and shy and usually stay away from populated areas. The most amazing creatures that live in town are turkeys, I have heard them many times, and seen them running across the road near various wooded areas. I think people in town do not realize how many wild animals share their streets and neighborhoods, I have written an article about wild animals in cities for my local MG newsletter. We have a large lake here, too, I think a ready source of water is a big attractant for animals.

Oh, yes forgot about the turkeys and peacocks.

Lynda, you should post your article here, would love to read it.

Thanks, Sherri, but it is kind of long? Maybe if it is ok with everyone else on this thread?

I posted these photos a while back but I don't remember where.

When my son lived out in a rural area of western NC he never saw any bears, lots of turkeys and deer and other usual wildlife but no bears. Now he lives near downtown Asheville and he sees bears all the time. I think it is the abundance of trash cans around the neighborhoods and all the restaurants. They cannot have bird feeders because the seed attracts bears and they have to put their household trash in a spare freezer until pick up day when they put it out for collection.

These photos were taken from his back porch, the bear was about 40' from the porch.

Wow, too close for comfort! I once lived in Fairfield Bay, a retirement community on lake Greer's Ferry. The retirees there were mostly mid-westerners, with some from places like Minnesota and Michigan. The mid-westerners were FEEDING the bears, thought they were cute.I had to tell them how dangerous bears are, and that it is not a good idea to feed any wild animal, excepting songbirds.

We go through that here with the alligators. For some stupid reason tourists think it is fun to toss marshmallows to gators. A fed gator is a dead gator because if they lose their fear of humans they are destroyed. Just this past week a gentleman was telling me I should let my dog swim in the pond where he lets his dogs swim. I sort of choked and had to explain that letting a dog swim in a pond is not safe because of the gators. He said "I have labs, a gator could not get a dog that big."

I feel so sorry for this man's poor labs. He's an idiot.

Alice, that photo from your son's house is really cool and it looks like a mama and cub. We used to see bears when we'd visit the Smoky Mountains. We have Black Bears here in Florida too and although I've never seen one, when we were living in the Daytona area there were quite often reports of bears being hit by cars out on West International Speedway Blvd. between Daytona and Deland and on the news I'd always see reports about bears over in the Wekiva River area near Orlando. It's a shame people feel that it's okay to feed wildlife, even with there being laws against doing so! We've had issues with kids feeding gators in one of the retention ponds here in the neighborhood and also at the neighborhood dock on the St. Sebastian River. Notices are sent out on occasion regarding the issue and it stops for awhile, then someone will see kids doing it again. When we bought this home in 2015, we were walking around the neighborhood and went up on the dock at one of the ponds and here comes a gator, swimming from across the other side of the pond, right up to the dock ... people told us it was because they had been fed and now associated humans with food. It was a small gator but it had to be trapped and relocated. Being so close to a wildlife preserve, we have lots of wild turkeys roaming the neighborhood at certain times of the year too and a couple of years ago, a neighbor found a dead turkey with an arrow through it ... we never found out who did it.

ardesia said:We go through that here with the alligators. For some stupid reason tourists think it is fun to toss marshmallows to gators. A fed gator is a dead gator because if they lose their fear of humans they are destroyed. Just this past week a gentleman was telling me I should let my dog swim in the pond where he lets his dogs swim. I sort of choked and had to explain that letting a dog swim in a pond is not safe because of the gators. He said "I have labs, a gator could not get a dog that big."

Ok, I've calmed down just a bit now, at least enough to realize trying to educate that lab owner would be a good thing. Alice, if you have his email or if you can print off these articles & share them with him, it may save his dogs lives. These all involve labs so he can't say labs are different than the dogs gators have eaten.

https://www.newsweek.com/flori...


Java, a chocolate Labrador retriever, was killed by an alligator at Dog Leg Canine Park. Andrew Epp, 36, killed himself the next day.
https://www.heraldtribune.com/...

Dog attacked by alligator at Tampa park
http://www.fox13news.com/news/...

Alligators attack 2 dogs in Central Florida
https://www.orlandosentinel.co...

First-grader watches in horror as her beloved 80lb Labrador is killed by ALLIGATOR while swimming in creek
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...

Florida golfers help with dog's rescue from alligator
https://golfweek.com/2017/02/1...

I am not positive this is not an altered video. I know the dog is bloated b/c it's been dead a while. What do you guys think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Family pet escapes alligator attack in neighborhood pond in Fishhawk community
https://www.abcactionnews.com/...

People are idiots if they think a gator will not take a large breed dog!

They can/do & have taken grown humans of both sexes. Why wouldn't they be capable of taking a large breed dog?

Alligators were reintroduced into Arkansas by the Arkansas Game and Fish back many years ago to help control the beaver population. They are mostly in the southern part of the state, although there is a small one in the Bona Dea park, a very nice park by the lake with walking and jogging trails. (The same place I saw the bear tracks). It is kind of wild there, with many small ponds and swampy areas. No one knows how it got there though I suspect it was someone's pet let loose. It hasn't been removed because it hasn't attacked anyone or eaten any dogs. You are a lot more likely to be bitten by a cottonmouth, there are some huge ones in there. You can hunt alligators here with a special hunt permit; it is a drawing, I think. I believe the state record is over thirteen feet long and around eight hundred pounds. I guess the worst problem we have is feral hogs; we have a huge population, they devastate farmers crops.

I explained to the guy that I have personally known of large dogs getting eaten or at least attacked. One of my best friends had a dog with 3 legs because a gator attacked and what was left of the leg had to be amputated. I also pointed out that people had been eaten here in FL and in SC. I hope I made an impression and didn't sound as hysterical as I felt. At least FL does monitor the gator population, gators, it is rare to see them in Saint Johns County but no one should take a chance.

ardesia said:I explained to the guy that I have personally known of large dogs getting eaten or at least attacked. One of my best friends had a dog with 3 legs because a gator attacked and what was left of the leg had to be amputated. I also pointed out that people had been eaten here in FL and in SC. I hope I made an impression and didn't sound as hysterical as I felt. At least FL does monitor the gator population, gators, it is rare to see them in Saint Johns County but no one should take a chance.

I hope you made an impression to him that he heeds what you said.
If he doesn't then you just have to remember you can't fix stupid.

You are so right! Ignorance can be fixed, but stupid is forever!

Amen to that.

Alice great bear photos, love the little cub. I've seen a few bears but have never captured a photo of them, usually on the side of the roadway while driving though Ocala forest. We live very near Wekiwa and I go hike there often in the cooler months.

I had one come right up to me at Wekiwa state park when we were camping. We'd been out kayaking all day and got back at dusk and I was cooking fajitas outside on our propane stove at our campsite. I heard a noise by me in the grass and couldn't see what it was, thinking probably a raccoon, I told my husband to shine the flashlight and it was a BIG bear, looked like gentle Ben if you all remember that TV show. I could've actually reached out and touched its head, it was that close, on all fours rocking its head from side to side smelling the fajitas I was simmering in my pan. I slowly backed up towards the camper and the bear just slowly turned around and walked back into the woods and left my fajitas alone.

My husband never moved, and then he said, "shoot we should have taken a picture"...REALLY. sheesh.

OMG, I never heard the story of the man who committed suicide after his dog was killed, what a sad sad story.