Baby alligators peck, grunt, crack their way into Gatorland family
Something big is hatching at Gatorland again. It’s that time of year when baby alligators break out of their shells by the dozens. The surge of hatchlings at the south Orlando attraction started last weekend.
The alligator eggs are collected from nests at Gatorland and taken to a backstage area for incubation and monitoring. That increases their odds of survival.
“Being an outdoor park, we have natural predators out there,” said Brandon Fisher, director of media relations, while holding a bin of more than two dozen eggs gathered from a single nest. One baby gator flits around between them. “Look at this guy, he’s tiny. A lot of things eat them.” The top predator for baby gators might be the blue heron, he said.
“In the wild, two or three of these eggs would survive to become a big alligator and adulthood,” Fisher said. “We get anywhere from 80 to 90% of our eggs that hatch out that we collect.”
Because there is a specific breeding season for gators, there’s accordingly a hatching season, generally the three weeks from mid-August into early September, said Chrissie Thompson, supervisor of animal care.
“We don’t know exactly when they’re going to be hatching out,” she said. “You can come in the morning there’s all the babies hatched out.” Factors such as rainfall and barometric pressure have roles in the delivery dates, too.
Baby gators arrive sporting a full set of tiny teeth plus a single “egg tooth” on their snout that helps break the shell. Some of the little ones aggressively burst out into the world; others take a nap after crawling halfway out. They start life being about 6 inches long. A full-grown male gator ends up between 12 and 14 feet long, weighing between 600 and 1,000 pounds, Fisher said.
Between 100 and 150 alligators per year hatch at Gatorland.
On Tuesday morning, the first hatchling of one nest made its debut. By early afternoon, it was scurrying around the bin with his unhatched nest mates as it made a squeaky, almost birdlike noise.
“That little grunting noise actually lets all of the other siblings know that it’s time to hatch out,” Thompson said. All the grunts, as the baby gators are called, should be out within 24 hours of the first one.
“They all should be on the same stage of development. If he’s fully formed, he’s perfectly healthy, he’s
ready to go, all the siblings should be in the same state as well,” she said. “If they’re not out within 24 hours there might be something that is inhibiting them and they can’t get out of egg. A lot of times we will assist just to make sure that everybody comes out happy and healthy.”
Gatorland keeps the majority of its babies, Fisher said. After about six weeks, they’ll be moved from the incubator area backstage into the Baby Gator Swamp enclosure on the north side of the attraction. The 1-year-old gators currently in the space will be moved backstage until they’re big enough to go into the water near the entrance of Gatorland. Eventually they go into the breeding marsh. Gatorland is home to about 3,000 alligators and crocodiles on its South Orange Blossom Trail property.
“We have loan programs that other zoos and facilities, too,” Thompson said. “Alligators get very, very large so if their animals outgrow the exhibit, they actually can trade back for smaller animals.”
Email me at dbevil@orlandosentinel.com. Want more theme park news? Subscribe to the Theme Park Rangers newsletter at orlandosentinel.com/newsletters or the Theme Park Rangers podcast at orlandosentinel.com/travel/attractions/ theme-park-rangers-podcast. For more fun things, follow @fun. things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.