WINK (Fort Myers, Florida) 11 August 08 Taking two alligators to the doctor (Maggie Crane)
Southwest Florida: What happens when an alligator needs to go to the doctor? In this Maggie Monday our Maggie Crane finds out.
For only the second time in 15 years, "Al" and "Allie," two alligators who live at the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium in Fort Myers have laid a nest! But, the Nature Center isn't big enough for the whole family. Plus, like all of us, they too need annual physicals, so we went along for the ride - literally!
Al and Allie hate going to the doctor. As you might have guessed, it's for their own good. But try telling that to two angry alligators.
First, Scott Gregory and Peter Burvenich work to tie up Allie-gator for their own safety.
They use a machete to chop down thick brush to get to Allie. Burvenich quickly ropes her thick neck and begins to pull her out into the open.
"You gotta pull straight! Keep your distance please!" he calls.
Once out from under the trees, Peter wrangles and ropes Allie into place.
"You gotta be able to think on your feet," Burvenich says.
This is the tricky part. Allie needs a dentist. She has a bone stuck in her tongue, meaning Peter has to keep her powerful jaws open wide enough to get it out. A veterinarian removes the bone, which is likely left over from the frozen rabbits the center feeds the alligators.
Once this patient is discharged, another one is lurking in line. Al weighs in at more than 800 pounds, and he's not going anywhere without a fight.
He tries to drag his captors into a death roll.
"If that alligator had a human being in his mouth, or an animal, once he starts doing that roll, that's what they do, the body parts come off and they swallow it whole," Scott Gregory, Calusa Nature Center Resource Naturalist, says.
Peter adds that this is no time to get into a wrestling match.
"They bite, they roll, they run -- anything they can do to try to leave, and basically what you have do when they do that is let them do it. Don't try to restrain him, because if you're going in a strength match, he's going to win every time," Burvenich says.
That's why it takes four of us to help hold him down. Piled on the back of an alligator, I can feel every breath it takes.
"You can feel the muscle, you can feel the power -- any time he wanted to get up with us on his back, he probably could have just gotten up and walked off," Burvenich says.
"Uh oh. He wants to eat us now," Bastian Dalton, 6, says as he looks on from the visitor's area.
A small crowd gathers to watch this rare spectacle as a veterinarian draws blood from the back of an alligator.
With both mom and dad now safely secured, the team can find their nest. This is only the second time Allie has ever laid eggs. But they can't stay here. The Calusa Nature Center isn't big enough for mom, dad and nearly 30 baby gators.
"Trying to get 25-30 babies out of this pond with the mother protecting them is very tough," Gregory explains. "Also, when the babies are born, they're very small, and if you see the size of the holes we have in the fence here, those babies will run right out through the holes in the fence."
So we get to work sifting through rocks and mulch that make up the gator nest. It's not long before we find a total of 27 eggs. We mark each one with a pencil to show the direction the egg was laid. Some don't make it, but everything at the Nature Center provides a learning experience for visitors.
"I thought it was really cool!" Lucas Everham, 13, says. "How many times in your life do you get to see someone take a gator like that?"
But for Scott and Peter, it's just all in a day's work.
"They're almost like dogs because they've been here for so long," Gregory says. "They're used to the people, they're used to their environment, and when they're hungry they come up to the fence looking for food. They are -- they're my two little puppies, my 12-foot and 8-foot puppies!"
"So when someone asks what did you do today?" Gregory says to me. I'll tell them"
"You got to sit on an alligator, that's a once in a lifetime opportunity," Gregory finishes my thought.
Al and Allie's blood will be tested before they're officially given a clean bill of health.
Those 27 eggs that we found are being incubated right now at the Calusa Nature Center. They should hatch by September. Then they'll be given to other educational facilities and zoos around the country.
Taking two alligators to the doctor