12ft Florida alligator becomes a golf course celebrity, but he's not alone

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/27/goliath-florida-alligator-golf-course

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A 12ft American alligator has become a minor celebrity for doing what he does best: gobbling turtles and roaming from pond to pond across the putting green of a Florida golf course.

Golfers first captured the large gator, nicknamed Goliath, in early March, after he (it’s probably a male) walked near golfers at the seventh hole of the Myakka Pines Golf Course. On Thursday, staff captured the large alligator, which is believed to be the same reptile, devouring a turtle for breakfast.

“Lots of people are asking what alligators eat … here is Goliath having a turtle for breakfast. (Sorta nasty to see but it’s the reality of wild animals),” Myakka Pines posted on Facebook, only to have news outlets worldwide reach out about the creature.

“He’s not the only alligator we’ve got on the golf course,” said Mickie Zada, the general manager of Myakka Pines. “Where there’s water, there’s alligators in Florida.”

The 27-hole course is located in Englewood, Florida, a town of about 14,000 near the southern third of the state’s west coast. Gator sightings are so common in Florida that the course has created a rule for playing through – two bonus strokes if a gator interrupts putting. And Florida residents like Zada seem a bit bewildered by Goliath’s recently acquired celebrity.

“It’s just not a big deal,” said Zada. “They don’t bother people; they don’t want to eat people. They want to eat turtles and small alligators and birds.”

Goliath is estimated at about 12ft long, still more than 2ft shy of Florida’s alligator record – 14ft 9in long. It could take a male alligator between eight and 12 years to grow that big, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Alligators are spread across the American south, as far north as South Carolina and as far west as coastal Texas.