Gatorland Global: Reaching out for reptiles
Gatorland Global, the conservation arm of the long-standing attraction, stretches to Cuba and Venezuela, over to Australia and back around to Orlando. So when an 11-foot alligator relocated to its new home on South Orange Blossom Trail, it’s a multitasking moment: thinking globally, acting locally.
The Gatorland crew gathered for a release into the breeding marsh recently, the fourth one of 2022. Sometimes these transitions look dramatic, with the animals appearing reluctant to meet their new swampmates.
“Alligators, especially when they’re moving from place to place not of their own decisions … of course, they’re going to be a little bit upset,” said Savannah Boan, international ambassador for Gatorland. It goes OK, eventually.
“We’ve had a 100% track record of them doing amazing out here,” she said.
The latest transplant, moved by trappers, comes from a lake at a Polk County water-ski school, where he was becoming a threat to humans. Duct tape holds his mouth closed, and a couple of Gatorland workers sit on his back, keeping him still on a flat area on the northern edge of the marsh. While they’ve got him, other employees use a tape measure and confirm
his length.
“We’re an afterthought to an 11-plus-foot alligator,” said Mike Hileman, park director. “It’s not even thinking about us there.”
The tape is removed — carefully — from the jaws and one by one, the two-legged Gatorland folk stand up and give the alligator some space. Boan then whoops, trying to lure him into the water. He thrashes a bit, whips his tail. It’s risky but it’s better than catching the toothy end.
“The tail will hit you, and it’ll beat you up a little bit. But that other side ... you don’t want any part of that,” Hileman said.
The Gatorlanders watch the new resident swim out to get the lay of the lake.
“Because it’s breeding season, he’s going to be the happiest alligator in the world,” Boan said.
They’re well-fed too. For those and other reasons, Mark McHugh, Gatorland’s president and CEO, calls the marsh “alligator paradise.”
Swamp meets
“We started this save the alligator program with the local trappers simply because it breaks our heart to see these big old alligators that have been living for 40 years somewhere, and they built a housing development or something around there, and they just end up in the wrong place at the wrong time,” McHugh said.
“We started Gatorland Global in 2018 just to give us a source of dedicated funding for our conservation work around the world,” he said.
Boan has traveled to Jamaica, Cuba and Australia for crocodile causes.
“I was able to release 10 Cuban crocodiles back into Zapata Swamp in different areas to increase distribution. Then we were just in Jamaica where they’re doing Head Start releases over there. We work with NEPA [the island’s National Environment and Planning Agency] there and we do the health assessments for them and support a crocodile sanctuary there,” she said.
“The Orinoco crocodiles that we have here now will eventually be released in a collaboration with Zoo Miami and some other zoos throughout the country,” Boan said.
“So it definitely is global; definitely global and local,” she said.
Gatorland also has used its YouTube videos to increase awareness for its causes and its attraction, which has been open since 1949. Viewers now visit and call out to alligators by name.
“People come here, looking for Buster and Buddy and Craftsman and Turnpike and Bogey,” McHugh said.
“The kids come here asking where these animals are … and by making that connection with them, giving a name and a personality to these animals, it makes that connection that people love them. Then they start getting more interested in conservation and saving them and protecting them,” he said.
Money earned via social media all goes to Gatorland Global efforts, McHugh said.
“We give that money out to these other organizations around the world that she [Boan] goes and visits. A lot of times they’re there in shacks out in the swamp and in the woods, and there’s not a lot of money,” he said.