My title is no exaggeration, either. I live in southeast Louisiana, about 45 minutes south of New Orleans. I was walking with friends through the national park near my house, the Barataria Preserve. About an hour into walking, we came across the sight of this 8-9 foot (Once again, no exaggeration. And yes, I know that alligators get way larger than that but it's very rare to see any in the wild over seven feet, and even those are uncommon.) alligator with its jaws over the head of a 5-6 footer.
Everyone at first believed that the big one was eating the smaller one. However, with the abundance of nutria and other such prey out there, it doesn't seem likely. I've searched many a database on alligator cannibalism and have only found articles on large alligators eating babies and yearlings for population control.
So my idea is that this is a huge male, defending his territory from another sexually-mature male. It is, after all, breeding season for the gators right now.
So what do you guys think?
And yeah, I got really close because the walkway was right there and I'm an idiot with a deathwish.
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