{"id":513121,"date":"2026-04-04T20:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/513121\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T20:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:37:08","slug":"its-bigger-than-london-teeming-with-a-staggering-30000-dangerous-alligators-and-is-one-of-the-deadliest-lakes-on-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/513121\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s bigger than London, teeming with a staggering 30,000 dangerous alligators and is one of the deadliest lakes on the planet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Covering 1,900 km2, Lake Okeechobee is the largest freshwater lake in Florida.\u00a0From bass to snakes,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/manatee-guide-where-they-live-what-they-eat-and-why-theyre-known-as-sea-cows\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">manatees<\/a>\u00a0to turtles, the water is teeming with wildlife, including around 30,000 alligators who call the shallow lake their home. <\/p>\n<p>This makes Lake Okeechobee one of the most alligator-infested water in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>American alligators, which can grow up to 4.5 metres long, are not fussy eaters. In Lake Okeechobee they eat\u00a0anything they can sink their teeth into, including turtles, snakes, small mammals and birds. Human\u00a0casualties\u00a0are rare, but not unheard of. In 2025, a woman was killed by an alligator on Lake Kissimmee, which is connected to Lake Okeechobee.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The alligators\u00a0in Lake Okeechobee\u00a0are dangerous, but so is the algae. The lake frequently experiences harmful algal blooms, particularly those dominated by blue-green cyanobacteria. <\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/plant-facts\/water-plants\/algae-facts-algae-blooms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">algae<\/a>\u00a0can produce microcystin, which is a toxin that can cause hives, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and fever. So,\u00a0if the \u2018gators don\u2019t get you, the algae just might.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Covering 1,900 km2, Lake Okeechobee is the largest freshwater lake in Florida.\u00a0From bass to snakes,\u00a0manatees\u00a0to turtles, the water&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-513121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}