There's actually no such thing as vegetables. Here's why you should eat them anyway
The rumours are true: Vegetables aren't real — that is, in botany, anyway.
Wildlife officials have removed 250 alligators from Disney properties in the five years since a 2-year-old boy was killed by an alligator at the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, a newspaper reported.
The company has worked with trappers contracted through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to remove the gators, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Most of the nuisance gators taken from Disney properties are euthanized and sold for their hide and meat, Tammy Sapp, spokeswoman for the wildlife agency, told the newspaper.
Some are also transferred to alligator farms, animal exhibits and zoos, she said. Those less than 4 feet (1.2 meters) are relocated, she said.
Trappers receive $30 for every captured gator, plus the proceeds from any leather and meat sold, the newspaper reported.
After Lane Thomas Graves was killed in June 2016, Disney installed a wall and put up reptile warning signs along waterways throughout its resorts.
Disney guests said they're glad the resort is proactively removing gators from its properties. A biology expert agreed, adding that the removals should have a minimal impact on the Florida alligator population.
Gina Parsley, a travel agency owner, told the Sentinel that her family stayed at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort last month and her 9-year-old daughter Gabriella spotted an alligator in the water. They told a campground employee and were informed that traps had been placed to trap the gator.
"We did not feel like it was a surprise to them," Parsley said. "I would have been more concerned if my daughter had brought it to their attention and they were like, `Oh my gosh, where?"'
Parsley said she understands how difficult it is to keep the property free of alligators.
"You see neighborhoods where a gator just strolls across someone's lawn and rings the doorbell," she said. "It's Florida: They do that. So, there's definitely fighting against nature with that one."
Florida's alligator population is about 1.3 million, the newspaper reported. To be considered a nuisance within the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program, an alligator must be least 4 feet (1.2 meters) long and pose a threat to people, pets and property.
The wildlife agency has removed close to 8,000 alligators annually over the past five years throughout the state of Florida.
Removing nuisance gators from Disney doesn't have much of an impact on the population since they're already living on developed land there, Deby Cassill, the integrative biology associate campus chair at the University of South Florida, told the Sentinel.
"It's already been compromised by development," Cassill said.
Sapp said there have been three fatal alligator attacks since 2016 in Florida and no reported bite incidents at Disney since Lane's death.
Cassill said the attack that killed the toddler happened during alligator mating season. As waters warm, males scan for females and females search for food. She said it was wise for Disney to place the barriers on the property and uproot the reptiles.
"I don't see a harm in removing and euthanizing some of the alligators that are in positions to do what they normally do and that is to find food," Cassill said. "We want to keep them away from children and pets as much as possible."
The boy's parents, Matt and Melissa Graves of Omaha, Nebraska, founded the Lane Thomas Foundation to help families with children in need of live-saving organ transplants.
The rumours are true: Vegetables aren't real — that is, in botany, anyway.
Israeli tanks seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing on Tuesday as Israel brushed off urgent warnings from close allies and moved into the southern city even as ceasefire negotiations with Hamas remained on a knife’s edge.
The Met Gala and its fashionista A-listers on Monday included Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya and a parade of others in a swirl of flora and fauna looks on a green-tinged carpet lined by live foliage.
A daily spoonful of olive oil could lower your risk of dying from dementia, according to a new study by Harvard scientists.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
The owner of three Calgary dogs that got loose and mauled a woman to death in 2022 has been ordered to pay a $15,000 fine within one year and banned from owning any animal for 15 years.
Some Ontarians are expressing frustration after they said that they were removed from their family doctor’s patient list for visiting a walk-in clinic in a process being called “de-rostering.”
Residents in Ottawa’s Elmridge Gardens complex are dealing with a rat infestation that just won’t go away. Now, after doing everything they can to try to fix the issue, they are pleading with the city to step in and help.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.