All the postings on losses to birds, coupled with the death of kid in
FLA by alligator, and catching a rerun of the James Bond movie where he
escapes being fed to alligators, and low and behold, the idea bulb went
off!

Someone needs to make a foam alligator decoy, which could be floated on
a tether in a pond. Only the eyes and nose and snout would need to be
modeled, not the whole body, it would only need to be a foot or two
long.

Solar cells, and a couple of LED's could make the eyes glow at night.
The foam body will hold enough batteries to keep it going a while, a
couple of days, overnight, and through cloudy days.

Those ultrasonic things that make water vapor, could make the snout
appear to "breath" mist, possibly a prop, so it could move around. Do
this at random, so it appears alive.

Now it would seem to me that what appears to be a 12' gator lurking in
your pond would be a big deterrent to any bird that would recognize
this.

Which should be most of them, and other animals, will see it as a
predator at least.

Be quite a novelty for humans as well. Little kid, "A gator in the
pond, why?" A: "to keep kids from swimming in it".

If someone wants to take this idea and run with it, I ask only credit
for the idea, and a freebie unit.