How world-first technology in Australia could prevent crocodile deaths – via Herp Digest

By Jason Lye, 9/29/29 NewsMax, 

A summer swim in North Queensland comes with a warning; danger is often not far away. 

Every three years a person is killed by a crocodile in the sunshine state. 

But world-first technology could now prevent it; spotting crocodiles from above by drone. 

In the murky waterways of far North Queensland, subtle signs are deceiving to the naked eye. 

Crocodile spotted using pool noodle to cross the canal 

Croc wanders onto Aussie beach metres away from locals, tourists 

Australians give each other crocodiles for Christmas 

It’s often hard to tell the difference between logs and crocodiles, but the deadly consequences are instantly clear. 

“That second could mean the difference between life and death in a potential crocodile attack,” said Ben Thurgood of Amazon Web Services. 

But now new technology developed in Australia can spot a crocodile by drone from the air. 

The “CrocSpotter” algorithm, supported by Amazon uses artificial intelligence. 

And it’s already vastly better than the naked eye – picking up 93 percent of crocodiles – more than six times what a human can. 

The drones were designed to spot swimmers in trouble and now can identify deadly threats. 

First, they developed shark spotting software, and now crocodiles are in their sights. 

It’s the newest tool for lifesavers this summer in Queensland, who will know within a second if danger is near. 

An eye in the sky over cloudy waters, where danger never lurks far beneath. 

Newshub.

Leopard kills toddler in South Africa's Kruger park

Big cat that attacked two-year-old was hunted down and shot dead to avoid risk of a repeat

Agence France-Presse in Johannesburg

Thu 6 Jun 2019 17.52 BSTLast modified on Thu 6 Jun 2019 18.23 BST

A leopard has killed a two-year-old boy inside a fenced-off staff compound at South Africa’s Kruger national park, officials said.

“The toddler was only 30 months old,” the park said in a statement on Thursday. “The boy was certified dead by doctors at the Shongwe hospital after being rushed there by family members.”

The leopard attacked the boy on Wednesday evening after getting into the staff living quarters, which are separated from the rest of the park by an electrified fence.

A team of rangers hunted down the big cat and shot it dead to avoid the risk of a repeat, said the park, adding that it may have attacked as it was too accustomed to contact with humans.

“In parks like the KNP (Kruger national park) predators do interact with tourists and staff and at times it may result in species like leopard getting habituated to people and losing their fear,” the park said.

“The change in natural behaviour can then lead to unfortunate incidents such as this.”

The KNP said attacks were a danger faced by all staff and family members living and working in the park, but were very rare.

Read on

Fraser Island dingo attack: boy in hospital after running into pack of wild dogs

Six-year-old in hospital with leg injuries after being bitten by a dingo on a sand dune

Ben Smee

Sat 19 Jan 2019 23.33 GMTLast modified on Sat 19 Jan 2019 23.35 GMT

A six-year-old boy has been attacked after unexpectedly running into a pack of dingoes on world heritage-listed Fraser Island, where the wild dog population is a protected species.

The child was bitten on the leg on Saturday afternoon after running up a sand dune.

The boy had been swimming with his family, and ran up the dune, Royal Automobile Club of Queensland Lifeflight rescue helicopter crewman Dan Leggat said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, when he got to the top, there was a pack of four dingoes,” Leggat said.

“One of the dingoes attacked the boy and bit him on the leg,”

The boy was treated by paramedics on the island and airlifted to the mainland at Hervey Bay.

Fraser Island, off Australia’s Queensland coast, is home to Australia’s most significant purebred dingo colony. About 200 dingoes inhabit the sand island, where they remain the apex predator and have been isolated from crossbreeding with feral and domestic dogs.

Tourists are warned to take precautions outside of fenced areas, including walking in groups, keeping children within arm’s length and not running as it attracts dingoes.

Read more

India man-eating tigress killed after huge hunt

3 November 2018

A tigress in India which is said to have killed 13 people has been shot dead after a major hunt, officials say.

The six-year-old tigress had evaded capture in the jungles of the western state of Maharashtra for two years.

Last month wildlife officials deployed perfume in a bid to lure the animal.

Activists had campaigned to save the tiger, but India's Supreme Court said it would not interfere if forest rangers were forced to shoot it.

A team armed with a tranquiliser gun and a firearm was stationed in a vehicle on a road where the tigress, known as T-1, had been spotted by villagers, a Forestry Department statement said.

A patrol team went to an area near Borati village on Friday evening, after receiving reports of the tigress' presence.

A tranquilliser dart was fired at the animal. Once hit, the tigress charged the patrol's vehicle and she was killed by a single shot from a distance of between eight and 10 metres (26-33 ft), the statement said.

A post-mortem will now be performed on the beast.

In August the tigress and her two nine-month-old cubs killed three people in the area around the town of Pandharkawada in Yavatmal district and left more than 5,000 residents fearing for their lives.

Continued

Five men and the sea: huge marlin sinks Filipino fishing boat

October 10, 2018 by Cecil Morella

It reads like a modern day take on 'The Old Man and the Sea'—five Filipino fishermen cast adrift for days on a makeshift raft after a huge marlin sinks their boat.

The men were fishing in the South China Sea last week when a six-foot (1.8 metre) marlin punctured their boat's wooden hull with its giant bill, vessel master Jimmy Batiller told AFP on Wednesday.

Their 12-metre boat quickly dipped beneath the waves in the early evening of October 3, leaving the crew with little drinking water or food until their eventual rescue by the US Navy on Monday.

"It (the fish) hit the bottom of our boat, leaving two big holes. We suspect it was chasing a smaller fish. It swam around the sinking boat for a while, apparently disorientated," Batiller said.

The fishermen salvaged what they could, removing the outriggers, planks and barrels to create a makeshift raft.

"Our water ran out after two days. We waved at passing commercial vessels but no one came to rescue us. But we did not lose hope," the 42-year-old father of one said, adding the crew also ate raw rice and drank some seawater.

"When we were rescued, that was when our tears fell," said Batiller, who has since been reunited with his family in Subic, a port about 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Manila.

Lucky to be alive

The US Navy said the men were lucky to survive, especially given the crew said they had drunk seawater.

Read more at: 

Why Deadly Alligator Attacks Seem To Be A Growing Trend - via Herp Digest

by Gina Marinex, 8/21/18, Time

The death of Cassandra Cline, a 45-year-old elementary school teacher, who was killed by a 9-foot alligator while protecting her dog on Hilton Head Island Monday made headlines around the world.

Fatal alligator attacks are rare – rare enough that they attract a lot of attention when they happen. But dangerous human-gator interactions are starting to happen more frequently because people are moving deeper into alligators’ habitat, says University of Florida professor Frank Mazzotti.

“People building homes where alligators live have caused the increase in attacks,” Mazzotti, a wildlife expert with the University of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, tells TIME

Florida, which has the most human-alligator interactions, has recorded 24 deadly alligator attacks since 1948 – but 14 of those have occurred in the last 20 years, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission data. There were an average of about 10 alligator bites a year in the 2010s, compared with an average of eight a year in the 1980s.

The last reported case of a fatal alligator attack in the U.S was in June. Shizuka Matsuki, 47, was last seen walking her two dogs in South Florida before her body was found miles away in a lake in Davie, Florida. Before that, Bonnie Walker, 90, wandered off her senior living center and was killed in an attack in Charleston, South Carolina in 2016.

Despite what seems to be increasing frequency, Mazzotti says attacks are still remarkably rare, considering the number of alligators in southeastern U.S. There are an estimated 100,000 alligators in South Carolina alone.“Alligators do not have an instinct to attack humans,” he says.

In many instances, there are several of factors that contribute to an alligator attack. Mazzotti says he believes a major factor in Cline’s death was her dog, which alligators perceive as food.

“A good comparison would be that a dog is like what a bowl of pasta or chicken is to a human, when an alligator sees a dog they see their next meal,” he says. “When nuisance trappers go into an area with gators they’ll often play a recording of a dog barking and the gators will come and investigate.”

Mazzotti says people need to be aware of their surrounding when they are near water or in areas where they have been alligator sightings.

He adds: “Don’t let your dog run free. Treat your dog like you would treat your child.

But, there’s a caveat. If a person is in the unfortunate situation where an alligator attacks a pet, Mazzotti says it’s best not to get in the alligator’s way.

His recommendation for anyone who does get attacked by an alligator: “Fight like your life depends on it.

“Poke the gator in the eyes and try to ram your hand down its throat,” he advises. “Alligators will often reposition its bite, take advantage of that to get away. Also make yourself appear as big as possible, the bigger you appear, the less likely the gator is to engage.”

Mother and toddler critically injured after giraffe attack

American scientist and three-year-old son trampled at wildlife reserve in South Africa

Aamna Mohdin

Thu 6 Sep 2018 18.40 BSTLast modified on Mon 10 Sep 2018 10.58 BST

A scientist and her young son have been left critically injured after they were attacked by a giraffe at a wildlife reserve in South Africa.

Dr Katy Williams, a 35-year-old American, and her three-year-old son, Finn, are in a critical but stable condition. An operation was performed on Finn during the early hours of Tuesday to release pressure on his brain caused by injuries sustained in the incident.

The family were attacked at about 6pm on Monday by a female giraffe 150 metres from their home in Blyde Wildlife Estate, in the country’s north-east.

Williams’ British husband, Sam, 36, was returning from a trail run on the estate when he found his wife and son being trampled by the giraffe. He was able to intervene and chase the giraffe away, according to a statement given by Marina Botha, the family’s lawyer.

Riaan Cilliers, the manager of the estate, said: “We are all in shock about this very sad incident and we ensure the family that they are in our prayers.”

Continued  

Hippo bite kills Taiwan tourist in Kenya

13 August 2018

A Taiwanese tourist has died after being bitten in the chest by a hippo he was trying to photograph in Kenya.

Chang Ming Chuang, 66, was tracking the animal at a wildlife resort on Lake Naivasha, 90km (56 miles) north-west of the capital, Nairobi.

A second tourist, also from Taiwan, was injured. Wildlife officials later shot dead the hippo.

High water levels have seen hippos - the world's deadliest large land mammal - stray on to resorts for pasture.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) initially identified the two tourists as Chinese but Taiwan's foreign ministry later confirmed they were Taiwanese nationals.

Kenya has no formal ties with Taiwan and recognises China's claims over the island.

Witnesses said the two had come too close to the animal near the Sopa hotel. The bitten man was rushed to hospital bleeding profusely but later died.

The second tourist, named as Wu Peng Te, was treated for minor bruising at Naivasha District Hospital.

"Our officers tracked and shot the animal after the incident," said KWS warden Nelson Cheruiyot.

Read on 

Dangerous protected reptiles

Date:  June 27, 2018

Source:  University of Freiburg

Summary:

Attacks by crocodiles have been rising in South East Asia since they became protected animals, a study finds.

The south-east Asian island state of East Timor has a problem with crocodiles. Between 2007 and 2014 there was a sharp increase in attacks on humans. Many of these attacks were fatal. Sebastian Brackhane, a research assistant in the Department of Remote Sensing and Landscape Information Systems of the University of Freiburg, has analyzed data on crocodile attacks in relation to a rise in the population of estuarine crocodiles in East Timor. The results of his field study have been published in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

Continued 

Florida homeowners warned over alligators two days before woman killed

Email sent to community where Shizuka Matsuki lived

Warning after 6ft alligator trapped at resident’s front door

Associated Press in Davie, Florida

Sun 10 Jun 2018 18.17 BSTLast modified on Mon 11 Jun 2018 16.45 BST

Two days before a south Florida woman was killed by an alligator, an emailed warning about a gator was sent out to homeowners in the waterfront community where she lived.

Shizuka Matsuki, 47 and from Plantation, Florida, was killed on Friday at another waterside location in Davie, five miles away. A witness told authorities he saw the woman walking two dogs and then noticed the dogs alone, barking near the water.

A 12ft 6in alligator was trapped and killed and an arm found in its stomach was matched to Matsuki via a tattoo. Her body was found in the lake hours later.

The Sun Sentinel of south Florida reported that it was unknown if Matsuki ever received the warning email from the Isla de Sol Homeowners Association in Plantation.

The email notified residents that a 6ft alligator had been trapped at a resident’s front door and warned people to be mindful of gators, snakes and other wildlife.

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Fatal elephant attacks on Rohingya refugees push Bangladesh to act

Young boy becomes latest in series of casualties at Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, which lies on migration route long used by elephants

Karen McVeighand Dinakar Peri

Wed 9 May 2018 14.07 BSTLast modified on Wed 9 May 2018 17.26 BST

Bangaldesh has pledged to step up its response to a series of deadly elephant attacks at a refugee camp housing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees after a 12-year-old boy was trampled to death.

Shamsu Uddin died instantly when an elephant attacked him after he had fallen asleep while guarding paddy fields with friends in Uttar Shilkhali village in the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar.

Three days later, a young girl was critically injured when elephants attacked Nayapara refugee camp, to the south of Cox’s Bazar.

Both attacks occurred outside Kutupalong, temporary home to 700,000 Rohingya refugees. The rising number of fatal elephant attacks – at least a dozen in the six months from October 2017 – tell a wider, tragic story of how deforestation, monsoons and the refugee crisis have left some of the world’s most vulnerable people at the mercy of wild animals.

Crowded together on a bare hillside at the mercy of the approaching rainy season, residents of the sprawling Kutupalong camp – mainly Rohingya muslims who have fled a brutal campaign of violence in Myanmar in August – already live in difficult conditions. But it also sits on several important migration corridorsbetween Myanmar and Bangladesh that elephants have used for centuries.

This year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) began a programme to raise awareness, setting up 56 watchtowers and 30 volunteer elephant response teams to warn residents when elephants enter the camp. As part of the initiative, people are made aware of what they should do if they encounter an elephant.

Read on 

Kangaroo attacks on tourists prompt warnings to stop feeding them junk food

Wild animals lash out at visitors to NSW hospital site after being fed inappropriate food such as carrots, chips and even McDonald’s

Guardian staff

Wed 2 May 2018 04.46 BSTFirst published on Wed 2 May 2018 04.22 BST

A state MP has called for a coordinated government response to a spate of junk food-crazed kangaroo attacks on tourists on the New South Wales central coast.

The attacks have occurred while tourists attempt to feed the native animals inappropriate food such as carrots and corn chips, and even McDonald’s takeaway, tourist operators in the area say.

“There have been a number of reported incidents in which kangaroos have attacked visitors, in one case causing a very deep gash to a man’s stomach,” the local MP, Greg Piper, told NSW parliament on Tuesday.

Read on 

Number of people killed by animals each year in the US remains unchanged

Date:  February 28, 2018

Source:  Elsevier

Summary:

Bites, kicks, and stings from farm animals, bees, wasps, hornets, and dogs continue to represent the most danger to humans, according to a new study in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine

Read on 

Big cat poacher is mauled to death and EATEN by the pride of lions he was hunting with only his head remaining at South African game reserve

Man is believed to have been hunting pride of lions when the big cats attacked

Screams were heard as he was being mauled to death at South African reserve

The lions devoured most of the poacher's body but left his head untouched

By Jamie Pyatt In Cape Town For Mailonline

PUBLISHED: 09:56, 12 February 2018 | UPDATED: 11:32, 12 February 2018

A big cat poacher has been killed and eaten by the pride of lions he was hunting at a private game reserve in South Africa.

The hunter was heard screaming for help as he was attacked at the Ingwelala Private Nature Reserve in Hoedspruit outside Phalaborwa.

But the lions quickly killed their victim and devoured most of his body before being chased off, leaving his head untouched. 

A big cat poacher has been killed and eaten by the pride of lions he was hunting at the Ingwelala Private Nature Reserve in South Africa. Pictured: Two lions at the private park that were not involved in the incident

Police at first thought the dead man was a tractor driver who worked at the game reserve. 

But when he turned up alive, they realised he may have been a poacher. A hunting rifle was found close to what was left of the blood drenched body.

Police in Limpopo have called in the Department of Home Affairs to help them to try to identify the dead man, who was not carrying documents.

Read more: 

Campers in Israel warned after series of wolf attacks

Ten incidents involving wolf bites have been reported over summer in Judean desert

Peter Beaumontin Jerusalem

Wednesday 20 September 2017 12.29 BSTLast modified on Wednesday 20 September 2017 15.08 BST

Israeli authorities are warning families with young children to take extra care after a series of wolf attacks on campers in the Judean desert.

Ten incidents involving wolf bites were reported over the summer around the historic site of Masada and the popular spring at Ein Gedi. A number of the incidents involved young children, leading to fears that an Arabian wolf or wolves may be exhibiting predatory behaviour.

The incidents at campsites and attractions began in May, when a wolf entered the tent of a family holidaying near Masada. It later returned to bite one of the family’s young children a few steps from her tent.

The attacks continued over the summer with the two most recent incidents occurring last weekend, when three children were bitten in two separate attacks near Ein Gedi.

Local rangers have been accused of not doing enough to find and trap the animal, or animals, involved – a charge denied by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Shilhav Ben-David, whose daughter was bitten in the first reported incident, said the wolf had entered the family’s tent before being chased off, only to return and attack her child a few hours later. She told Haaretz she only became aware the wolf had returned when she saw it on top of her child.

Readon  

Komodo dragon bites Singaporean tourist in Indonesia - via Herp Digest

JAKARTA, Indonesia - AP 5/5/17- A Komodo dragon has bitten an overly inquisitive tourist in Indonesia who ignored warnings about getting too close to the enormous reptile while it was eating, a national park official said.

The tourist from Singapore was bitten on his leg Wednesday morning while taking pictures of the Komodo dragon, the world's largest lizard, said the chief of the Komodo National Park, Sudiyono.

Sudiyono said the man was rescued by locals and rushed to a hospital in Labuan Bajo on Flores Island, near Komodo Island, for treatment.

Endangered Komodo dragons are found in the wild on several eastern Indonesian islands. They can grow to 3 meters (10 feet) or more in length.

Attacks on humans are rare but may increase as Indonesia is promoting the Komodo National Park as a tourist destination. In 2013, a guide and a park ranger were attacked in separate incidents.

Experts say the Komodo dragon population in the wild is less than 4,000 but stable.

Katter’s Australian party push to legalise crocodile hunting after Queensland attacks

Party to draft laws allowing a controlled cull of protected reptiles, including Indigenous-run safari hunts, after two suspected attacks in state’s far north

Joshua Robertson

Monday 20 March 2017 08.00 GMT Last modified on Monday 20 March 2017 08.49 GMT

Two suspected crocodile attacks in the same north Queensland area within a day have prompted a bid by Katter’s Australian party to legalise hunting of the protected predators.

Wildlife officers and police believe Warren Hughes, 35, may have been killed by a 4m-plus crocodile that later “charged” a police boat searching for the Cairns man’s body on Sunday night.

The body of Hughes, who went missing on Saturday while spearfishing alone 200m off Palmer Point, was recovered on Monday with injuries “consistent with a crocodile attack”, police said.

It followed the mauling of a teenager who tried to swim the Johnstone River in Innisfail on a “dare” before dawn on Sunday, as well as several attacks on dogs around Cairns at the weekend.

Matt Brien, the manager of northern wildlife operations at the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, said wildlife officers would set out on Monday night to try to remove the crocodile suspected of attacking Hughes, with “lethal force” an option.

“The animal charged the [police] boat and behaved quite aggressively and it seemed to have something in its mouth, although it couldn’t be confirmed,” Brien said.

“But based on the behaviour of this animal and the location, and also in recovery of the body, it appears that this animal may be responsible for the death of this man.”

Shane Knuth, one of two Katter’s Australian party crossbench MPs in Queensland’s hung parliament, said the party would draft laws allowing a controlled cull of the reptiles, including bounties and Indigenous-run safari hunts.

 

Continued 

Kangaroo attacks Melbourne jogger 'like a damn truck'

Personal trainer Debbie Urquhart says she was running on a bush track when a two-metre-tall ‘big boy’ came out of nowhere

Australian Associated Press

Tuesday 17 January 2017 02.13 GMT

A towering male kangaroo hit a Melbourne jogger “like a damn truck” in an attack that left her scratched, bleeding and needing emergency surgery.

Debbie Urquhart, a personal trainer, said the “big boy” who came out of nowhere and knocked her down was two metres tall.

Urquhart didn’t see him coming as she was out running on a bush track on Saturday morning near Westerfolds Park. “He came and he hit me like a damn truck and I didn’t know what was going on,” she told 3AW on Tuesday. “The more I was screaming the more he was going for me.”

Urquhart said the attack ended when she stopped screaming, allowing her to crawl into grass and hide.

She hobbled about 200 metres home, bleeding profusely, and her husband took her to hospital. She needed dozens of stitches and emergency surgery to repair a torn biceps muscle, a ripped deltoid and deep scratches to her back and buttocks.

“He pushed me down with his back feet and then just sort of clawed at me,” she said. “Me protecting myself is how my arm got ripped so badly. He could have got to my stomach or anything but I sort of protected myself with the grass and, thank God, he moved away.”



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‘She will have stories to tell’: Idaho preschooler saved from jaws of mountain lion in rare attack

By Ben Guarino August 15 

The first time the mountain lion pawed its way through the Idaho campsite Friday, the cat went unnoticed by everyone except for one woman. Kera Butt was camping with her family in Green Canyon Hot Springs, near Yellowstone National Park, when she caught a glimpse of the animal.

“As we were eating dinner, I turned my head and saw the back part of the cat,” Butt told East Idaho News. “I saw it move and I told everyone, ‘I just saw a cat.’”

Her family was skeptical. It must have been a different species of animal — perhaps she had mistaken a wolf for the larger predator, they said. Although mountain lions are native to the Yellowstone area, the cats are almost mythical in their ability to go unseen. They are stealthy hunters and usually shy around humans. No more than a few dozen live in the 3,000-square-mile park at a time.

Butt’s eyes did not deceive her. She had indeed spotted a mountain lion, an event the Idaho Department of Fish and Game called “highly unusual.” Stranger still, the big cat would return later that night — in a brief moment that, to the Butt family, unfolded in horror.

By about 9 p.m. Friday night the family had dispersed throughout the campground after dinner. A few cousins went down to the creek to play. Butt had taken one of her daughters to use the bathroom in the forest, said Jim Sevy, a relative, in an interview with East Idaho News. Just beforehand, she put her daughter Kelsi, 4, in the tent to take a nap.

But Kelsi emerged soon after to join her cousins in the stream. “She got out of the tent because she couldn’t find her shoe,” Sevy, Kelsi’s grandfather, said.

In that moment, the mountain lion struck. The adults in the family heard screaming — one of the 10-year-old cousins witnessed the ambush. And as they ran toward the sounds, they saw the cat holding Kelsi in its mouth.

 Read on

There’s No Way to 'Make Any Kind of Positive Identification' of the Alligator That Attacked 2-Year-Old Boy at Disney World, Says Forensic Dentist - via Herp Digest

People Magazine 6/24/2016

The forensic odontologist who worked with the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission subject matter experts and law enforcement investigators to identify the alligator responsible for the death of 2-year-old Lane Graves on June 16 says he was not able to "make any kind of positive identification to a specific animal." 

Dr. Kenneth Cohrn, who examined Lane's body postmortem (not the alligators), says the case had little evidence, and there was no way to "isolate a specific animal." 

"They could have had 50 alligators there, but if you don't have adequate information to match the teeth to the bite wounds, there's nothing to look at," Dr. Cohrn tells PEOPLE. 

His comments come a day after the FWC said they were "confident" they had removed the alligator responsible for the attack at Disney World's Seven Seas Lagoon, in a statement released to PEOPLE on Wednesday. 

The reported animal has been euthanized, a spokesperson confirmed to PEOPLE. The FWC said they were able to correctly identify the alligator based on "expert analyses and observations by staff with extensive experience in investigating fatal alligator bite incidents." Investigators took into account witness descriptions, proximity to the site of the attack and the size of the alligator. 

During the investigation, trappers euthanized six alligators from the area, the FWC confirmed to PEOPLE on Friday. Three of those alligators were of the correct size to have taken the toddler. Two of those three were in close enough proximity to the incident to have killed Lane. 

"I do believe it was a smaller sized one. Two [of the alligators trapped] were small, less than five feet. It could have been one of those," says Dr. Cohrn. "But there is no science behind that. We really couldn't make an identification." 

In a statement released to PEOPLE on Wednesday, the FWC said that the bite marks were indeed "inconclusive," but that "subject matter experts were able to conclude that either of the two suspect alligators captured near the attack site were capable of inflicting the observed wounds." 

The FWC also said that "DNA was collected from the victim and all alligators captured. Results from the victim's wounds were negative for animal DNA, and no comparison could be made." 

According to the FWC, 1.3 million alligators live in Florida, but attacks are "a very rare occurrence." 

"Any waterway in Florida could be a potential habitat for alligators and other critters. So there’s really no way to control it. This is their habitat, this is where they live and you can expect to see them," says Dr. Cohrn. "You run into a problem where the boundaries between people and populations interact with the natural habitat of wild animals. It happens in communities, it happens in park areas, it happens all over Florida." 

A memorial foundation has been set up by Lane's parents Melissa and Matt Graves, who released a statement on the foundation's website. 

"After the tragic loss of our beloved 2-year-old son, Lane Thomas, we have created the Lane Thomas Foundation to honor his memory," the statement reads. "Losing Lane has broken our hearts in the worst possible way. While there is no way to mend our hearts, we can do good work in his honor."