Mating Season Ago

Alligators have claimed two more lives in Florida, days after a female jogger was mauled to death in a canal. It's the states highest number of alligator-related fatalities in one week since records began in 1948. Ms Annmarie Campbell, of Paris, Tennessee, who was on holiday in a rented log cabin, was snorkelling in about 3ft of water when she disappeared from view. Friends found her hanging from an alligator's mouth, trapped in its bite; as one ran a mile to summon help, two others leapt on the thrashing creature and tried to fight it. "They gouged its eyes and pounded on its snout with their hands," Kat Kelley of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said. "They were trying to pry open its jaws. These people are pretty much in shock. The guys had cuts and scrapes on their hands." In a second incident 140 miles south in Dunedin, Judy Cooper, 43, was found dead and mutilated in a pond by local residents who spotted her feet poking out of the water. "I saw what looked like a pair of trousers floating on the pond. Then I saw a pair of sneakers attached to it and my daughter went out there with a stick and pushed on it and it turned out to be a body," Fred Ferderber said. "I didn't think it was real. Her arms were missing and she had a couple of bite marks on her sides." Mr Ferderber, 50, said he had often seen an alligator up to 8ft long sunbathing defiantly behind his home. "When you got close to it, it would hiss at you. Most of the time, they'll flee into the water, this one just sits there like it's his spot," he said.