An 85-year-old dog walker has been killed by an 11ft alligator in Florida.

The woman was attacked on Monday afternoon beside a canal near Fort Pierce on Florida‘s Atlantic coast.

The alligator targeted the dog, who survived the attack, but its condition is not known.

Details about the woman, who was walking in a retirement community, have not been released.

A trapper from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC) later tracked down the alligator before it was taken away.

The retirement community, called Spanish Lakes Fairway, is around 70 miles (113km) north of West Palm beach.

According to the FFWCC, 26 people have been killed in unprovoked attacks between 1948 and 2021, with a total of 442 injuries from alligator bites.

However, the chances of a person in Florida being injured after an unprovoked alligator attack is about one in 3.1 million, the commission said.

In 2016, two-year-old Lane Graves was killed by an alligator while on holiday with his family at Walt Disney World – around 100 miles (161km) away from Fort Pierce. Since then hundreds of alligators have been relocated from the area.

The estimated population of the reptile in Florida stands at more than 1.3 million despite alligators once being on the endangered species list.

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Wildlife officials have warned people to be careful around bodies of water and urged people not to feed alligators.

“Although alligators can move quickly on land, they are not well adapted for capturing prey out of the water. However, they can lunge at prey within a few feet of the shoreline,” the commission said.

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