I've been shooting at Ding Darling for two years now, and had heard about the American Crocodile that lives there. Well, I finally saw her yesterday! So here's the story: She's about 11 feet long, 50 years old, hates alligators, and refuses to leave. She's been there since at least 1986, and even when they caught her a few years ago and dropped her off in the Everglades....she came back! They marked her, so they know it's the same one. These images are not very good, but they were in really bad light, and as you can see in the second one, she wasn't really in the mood for posing! BTW - Neither of these images are cropped! Handheld with the 40d and 100-400 zoom:

http://CatcherofLight.smugmug.com/photos/251046928-L.jpg

http://CatcherofLight.smugmug.com/photos/251047036-L.jpg

Bottom line - This is the same Croc that scared the heck out of Paul 10 years ago!

reminds me of happy gilmore!

man i can't wait to get to Florida again.

CB- I'm surprised that you didn't break out your macro lens for some close up work!!:D

Wow....look at those teeth.....she could do some real damage....LOL...

She looks like in the second shot she has more teeth on one side than the other, must have broken some off, chewing on bones.....ewwwwwwww

Paul must not have seen this one yet :-) This is the same one he had the encounter with 10 years ago!

Only 11 foot... ??

Very cool that she came back, but I think she's shrinking with age :wink:

She definately swam away from gators, because I seen her swimming fast away from a much smaller gator as it approached about 8 years ago.