Gators gotta eat
Somebody still has to go feed the alligators, even if attraction is closed
Gatorland employee Michael Brown hollers to his favorite gator swimming off in the distance as if he is calling home his dog.
“Buster!” he shouts. “Come on!”
Brown tosses raw steak into the jaws of the alligators whose names often hint at their backstories, like Bogey, who was discovered on a golf course, or Van Gough, who is missing an ear.
Normally, spring break tourists are here in strong numbers at Gatorland, but the park has been closed for days from the coronavirus, leaving it up to Brown to take his faithful post and feed his alligators. It’s like a restaurant that can’t shut down as the customers demand their 1 p.m. feeding, which has gone on every day for years.
“The menu never changes, and the guests bite each other, but, hey, whatever,” Brown says.
Disney World and the smaller attractions are temporarily closed, but behind the scenes, scores of employees such as Brown are on the frontlines caring for animals. Gatorland, SeaWorld Orlando and Disney’s Animal Kingdom can never truly close as long as there’s a baby manatee that needs to be bottle-fed or a hungry hippo waiting for lunch.
“Their dedication is unbelievable,” Gatorland CEO Mark McHugh said. “They love the animals. No matter
what happens, they will be here, taking care of the animals.”
At SeaWorld Orlando, Jon Peterson leads a 24 /7 team called to do emergency animal rescues. This week alone, the patients rolled in from a sandhill crane with a hurt leg, a pelican and two manatees.
The turnstiles are quiet. The park isn’t making any money. Yet, SeaWorld hasn’t turned away any animals in need, the company says.
“They may have had to shut our front doors, but our rescue doors stay open,” Peterson said Wednesday.
It inevitably comes at a cost.
Peterson declined to provide specific figures on the animal expenses, but he said the typical price tag for one dolphin’s rehabilitation costs SeaWorld about $250,000 as an example of the company’s significant investments.
Meanwhile, the killer whale trainers report into work, business as usual. The orca shows are over, at least for now without an audience in the stands, but Morgan Ricke still plays with the animals and trains them daily to keep them engaged and healthy.
“Honestly my job hasn’t changed pretty much at all,” Ricke said. “The shows are such a small part of our day.”
The company has announced it is indefinitely furloughing more than 90% of its employees, but “animal care experts will continue to look after the health and welfare of the animals in our care,” SeaWorld Orlando spokeswoman Lori Cherry said in a statement.
Chrissie Thompson is the kind of employee who loves her job so much, she tattooed the iconic Gatorland entrance on her leg.
She was the little girl catching frogs to scare her sister. Now grown, the animal care supervisor kneels down to feed 6-month-old baby alligators with special food that resembles dog chow.
She heads out for some playtime with Jabari, a graceful 25-pound African Serval that had once been someone’s illegal pet. Jabari chases a squeaky tennis ball and then parades around with his prize in his mouth. Thompson laughs. Sometimes work is a welcome distraction from what’s happening around her.
“Everyone needs to be fed. Everything needs to be cleaned,” Thompson said. “Then you go out, and it’s a completely different world outside Gatorland.”
Like many, she worries about her aging parents, who are in their 70s and 80s. She checks in with her mother to see what she needs.
At least one stress is gone. At Gatorland, the employees are still getting paid compared with other businesses where many are abruptly laid off.
McHugh, the company’s CEO and president, has promised to pay his staff of 190 during the shutdowns, for up to 30 hours a week for full-time employees and 20 hours for part-time and seasonal employees, whether or not they’re able to come to work.
Gatorland is racking up several hundred thousands of dollars a week in bills as McHugh dips into the company’s savings that he stockpiled when times were good and Gatorland posted several record-breaking attendance years in a row.
On some days, employees can also get a free meal at work, too.
Normally at 1 p.m., Brown’s schtick begins.
For the tourists, Brown plays the entertainer, constantly cracking alligator jokes, as Gatorland visitors pay extra to step beyond the fence and feed the park’s biggest alligators pieces of meat. Brown also is a bodyguard, keeping the lumbering gators from getting to close to tourists on the beach where they are fed.
He acknowledges it feels “sad” to lose his audience whom he hopes his love of animals rubs off on, but he is also thankful to have a steady paycheck coming in.
The gators are still hungry even if there are no spring break crowds to feed them.
It’s mating season, and the males bellow, sounding like Harvey Davidson motorcycles revving their engines when they compete for females. If the gators are fed and happy, tensions cool during this stressful time.
To get some steak, the gators slowly climb onto each other, not caring in the slightest about social distancing consuming the rest of the world.