Who knows that they were, in fact, hunting alligators? Is it not possible they had the firearm for protection, and used it in self-defense? It is reasonably foreseeable that an alligator (or other dangerous reptile, etc.) might threaten a boating party.

Maybe it's a small alligator, but who among us would volunteer to let it bite us?

Let's give the benefit of the doubt. Better yet, the law of the land is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Does anyone else see the guy with the rifle and the woman on the boat and think this is a preview, 20 years in the future, of Charlie and his passenger on The African Queen? I bet that guy didn't like leeches, either.

The girl at eye level with the gator but seemingly a million miles away, sniffing an apple, looks like the subject of a Renoir. I can imagine the colors.

What vanity! What bravery! Goint out of your way to kill a gator, particularly a baby gator. I sure hope Karma exists.

She’s just hungry. Check the other photo in the link Dave provides: she’s chowing down there, too.

It actually tastes like chicken, ladies.

It looks like the slayer has used his trusty Winchester 1873 model to dispatch the beast.

The lady eating the apple seems completely out of place in this photo.

The girl in the boat seems more interested in her apple than the beast.

Sizing it up.

Alligator hunting in Florida is now strictly controlled. You have to have a permit and only hunt in special seasons. It is now a class III felony to do what they did here. You can get five years in jail.

To folks brave enough to crowd aboard that obvious firetrap of a boiler-fired, awning-bedecked launch, what matter a few alligators?