I don't know what the laws are in Louisiana.
We have regular alligator neighbors show up in the pond in our North Carolina backyard pond. The state will relocate them if they are more than 6-foot, or if they are showing aggressive tendencies. My last alligator friend was never aggressive, and was only 3-4 feet long. It was obviously a "juvenile" because it still had yellow stripes on its tail.
Again, your temperatures are so different from ours, I don't know what will happen with a 2-1/2 foot gator. At that size, they don't usually present much of a threat to anything but frogs, turtles, and small fish.
In North Carolina, I would not consider a critter of that size to be any kind of a threat. I wouldn't feed it. I wouldn't try to befriend it. However, at that size, it will probably move on to other areas as it grows towards puberty.
Again, I don't know much about your area, but at that size, I would be more afraid of a neighbor's drug-crazed teen, or a neighbor's mal-treated dog.
I don't have any evidence to say that a 2-1/2 foot (30 inch) gator is any more of a threat than a 30 inch striped bass -- or even a 30 inch shark. But ...
