There's probably no animal that's more identified with Florida than the American alligator. They're found in virtually every freshwater creek, river and lake and are also at home in brackish water, and contrary to what some people think, they will go into salt water on occasion.

Especially at the southern end of their range, alligators can be massive animals, like this 12-foot, 9-inch bull gator. Such an animal conditioned to view humans or pets as a source of food is dangerous indeed. Photo courtesy of Ryan Courtney.

Though Florida has its share of alligators, it isn't the only state the reptiles call home: They're also found in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Wherever alligators are found, they command a healthy measure of respect.

We will never know how many Native Americans, or early settlers for that matter, had bad encounters with alligators, but the former Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (GFC) began keeping records of alligator attacks on humans in 1948. The results are scary.

There were only a few attacks on humans through the mid-1970s, probably because gator populations were low and rebuilding, but since then, both attacks and fatalities have soared. Through the end of 2007, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the successor to the GFC, has recorded 307 attacks and 22 fatalities.

In May 2006, the state of Florida experienced its deadliest week ever when three women died in gator attacks. They included a 23-year-old Tennessee woman who had just graduated from college, a 28-year-old Florida Atlantic University student and a 43-year-old woman from Dunedin. Other than being female, all they had in common were being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Florida, like most states that have alligators, has a program for the removal of any alligator over 4 feet in length that poses a threat to people or their animals.

Florida has a network of about 40 trappers licensed by the FWC to remove nuisance alligators.

Then, there's the late-summer hunting season open to the public. In 2008, the season ran from Aug. 15 to Oct. 31 on public waters. There were over 5,100 permits issued and each permit holder was allowed to kill up to two alligators.

Even with a system in place to deal with nuisance alligators and a statewide hunting season, there are all-too-frequent incidents where alligators and humans meet.

Sometimes they are face offs, such as a gator crawling into a back yard, garage, underneath a car or bringing traffic to a standstill by crawling onto a busy highway.

In one unusual encounter a few years ago, a homeowner and his wife were awakened to the sound of crashing glass. Believing the house was being broken into by a burglar, the husband, handgun in hand, carefully made his way to the kitchen. When he flipped on the kitchen light, the burglar turned out to be an 8-foot alligator lying on the floor. The homeowner shot the gator several times, then waited for the police and FWC to arrive. The gator had simply crawled to the house from a nearby lake, then battered its way through a single pane window and onto the kitchen floor.

Sometimes the encounter can be as harrowing and dangerous for nuisance trappers as it is for the gator.

Ronnie Braxton is 62 today, and for several years, he was the nuisance gator trapper. If a gator had to be caught and destroyed, he and his close friend and assistant, David Enfinger, were the go-to guys.