The Happiest Place on Earth? Not if You're an Alligator at Disney

Last week, a two-year-old child was snatched from the edge of one of the park’s man-made pools, his body found the next day. The incident has left many questioning why the park had not installed signs with warnings about the large reptiles. Following the attack, the park installed warning signs throughout the property.

"You'll never be able to get them all," Florida trapper Ron Ziemba, who spent five years working with the park, told Reuters. "There are just so many canals, so many waterways. The gators travel a lot."

Ziemba explained that encounters are inevitable, as humans enter into alligator habitats.

The state of Florida has a Nuisance Alligator Program (NAP) which granted the park a 10-year permit to remove up to 300 alligators of over 4 feet in length, from 2009 through 2019. The park is currently killing some 24 large alligators per year, on average. The permit allows employees of the park who are not trained trappers to kill alligators in special circumstances, but the park has not revealed if any employees have done so.

"Walt Disney World is responsible and has a comprehensive approach that helps to reduce the potential for interactions between people and alligators," a Disney spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the park owns land that has been designated as a wildlife conservation area, away from the park, where smaller gators are relocated.

There are an estimated 1.3 million alligators in the wild throughout the state of Florida. The NAP permits the killing of over 8,000 of the animals per year.