Alligator!!

"There's an alligator pond," said Kendall. A local was snapping photos from the road beside the pond, a part of Davis Bayou saltwater marsh we had been photographing. We strolled over to take a look. Nothing untoward...a piece of wood floating on the surface, a couple of bumps across the pond. "Those two bumps over there. See 'em," he says? "That's an alligator.". And sure enough, the bumps began moving and an alligator reared up out of the pond thrashing. Draped across its massive mouth, jaws clenched, was a slack animal carcass. Raccoon, from the looks of it. The alligator submerged, bubbling beneath the surface, disappearing from view. The pond surface returned to stillness. No evidence of alligator. Nothing. We watched, minutes passed....up it came again, thrashing and tossing its mighty head, jaws the length of a small kayak, the size of it a good ten feet long, middle submerged, that reptilian tail swinging back and forth splashing. It submerged again, and unless you had witnessed its presence as we had, it is likely you wouldn't know that those two small bumps signaled an awesome creature floating silently beneath the surface of the bayou pond. (Our 'gator photos were a blur.)

"Acre for acre salt marshes are four times more productive than fertilized cornfields. Wetlands provide feeding, spawning and nursery grounds for more than half the saltwater fin- and shellfish harvested annually in the U.S." John G. Mitchell "Our Disappearing Wetlands," National Geographic 1992