Animal Matchmaker, introducing 2 gators and 2 skunks!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:03]More food for you, buddy.

[00:00:06]He's a menace.

[00:00:08]Aw, he's so goofy looking.

[00:00:11]He's excited.

[00:00:13]Anyways, though.

[00:00:14]So, what we're going to try to do here, Gabby and I were just talking about this. Salone has a huge enclosure for one singular male alligator, and it is now breeding season, and so we're talking about giving it another shot of putting uh Ballerina, the female alligator, in with Salone.

[00:00:32]Now, last time we you know, we tried this. We tried this with two different two or three?

[00:00:39]Two. Two different female alligators, including her, and he kicked them both out of the water.

[00:00:44]Now, thankfully, he doesn't try to kill them or eat them. So far, okay?

[00:00:50]Um but uh yeah, he just kicks them out of the water, and then, you know, if that happens again, we can catch her, we can get her out. We just She's in this little tiny temporary enclosure, you know, and it just kind of sucks. And obviously, we want to be able to utilize this large amount of space that we built for him, because it was the idea that he would have a female in there with him. So, since we are right in the middle of breeding season, he's been bellowing all the time every day.

[00:01:12]Um And which we never get to film, cuz they always stop by the time we get to over there. But he's been bellowing every day, which means I think he's looking for a girlfriend, you know? So, I think it would be a good time to go ahead and give this a try.

[00:01:25]Again, if it doesn't work, we catch her back out and everything over again, and she might have a couple of scratches, but she should not be uh injured or anything like that. So, >> She's also heavier now than she was.

[00:01:36]>> Mhm. Cuz remember, she came in emaciated. She's still a little skinny, but she's put on some weight, so Yeah. We're going to closely watch them, and if anything, we pull her out. Yep.

[00:01:47]All right, so she's been in this little temporary that we actually built for the beavers.

[00:01:52]Come on, big girl.

[00:01:55]I'm hoping I can get her to just walk out.

[00:01:58]Just trying to get her out of there.

[00:01:59]It's not going to be easy. Wow, I picked a really really bad piece of wood to use as a bait. This might work better.

[00:02:06]You want that?

[00:02:07]Yeah, you want to eat this big piece of plastic?

[00:02:12]There you go.

[00:02:17]Wonder how far I can get her.

[00:02:19]Just have her walk in with Salone. No, baby, I don't have anything.

[00:02:24]I'm going to shut this so she can't hear us.

[00:02:27]You're fine. You're fine. You're fine.

[00:02:29]You're fine.

[00:02:31]Maybe just drag her. Come on, man.

[00:02:34]I know, I'm sorry.

[00:02:37]Just going to get her away from anything.

[00:02:39]As you can see, she is so excited to get a boyfriend.

[00:02:43]She can't wait.

[00:02:46]Hold on, big girl.

[00:02:50]He's pretty gentle.

[00:02:52]Yeah, you're okay. You're okay.

[00:02:59]Goodness.

[00:03:01]It's okay.

[00:03:02]You're okay.

[00:03:03]>> a sec to calm down.

[00:03:05]It's okay. She was gentle, right?

[00:03:07]>> Yeah, he's pretty good about it.

[00:03:09]It's okay. We're going to try to get you a friend in a beautiful enclosure.

[00:03:14]It's okay.

[00:03:16]Why did I wear white pants today, huh?

[00:03:19]Okay.

[00:03:21]Oh, you're fine.

[00:03:23]Oh, you're fine.

[00:03:23]>> Ballerina, it's okay.

[00:03:33]Look at that. Take that out of my pocket.

[00:03:39]Not a lot of tape on there. Oh, you can't even do it, huh? My hand is still messed up. Okay.

[00:03:45]I can do >> try. I can do it now. It's okay.

[00:03:48]I just wanted her to calm down.

[00:03:50]Okay.

[00:03:52]Oh, it's okay.

[00:03:54]Look at those teeth. Yeah, this is kind of hurting, but I got it started for you.

[00:03:59]All right.

[00:04:10]That's enough for two feet, right? Just be careful.

[00:04:13]Yeah, she can flex that, but >> Yeah, she's flexing it. I don't think she can pop it.

[00:04:19]Okay.

[00:04:26]And now we throw her to the wolves.

[00:04:28]Just kidding.

[00:04:32]It's okay, sweet girl. I really hope this works out.

[00:04:44]Well, We're going to have to put her down and back him up. Yep.

[00:04:48]I'll watch her. Okay.

[00:04:53]It's okay.

[00:04:56]Alligator matchmaker.

[00:04:57]>> Ooh, you better be nice.

[00:05:00]Did you see that lunge?

[00:05:02]Ooh, you better be nice.

[00:05:05]Ooh.

[00:05:10]Man, did you happen to get that?

[00:05:11]Um a little bit.

[00:05:25]Once he's in the water, I can have the stick and push him back. I think. I might not be able to film it, but Can you?

[00:05:37]I think so. I mean, I I'm going to have to not use It's better to have two hands. Now I know.

[00:05:48]Stop eating up your girlfriends, sir.

[00:05:50]Stop eating up your girlfriends.

[00:05:57]His water looks nice.

[00:06:00]Put her deeper in.

[00:06:02]Stop.

[00:06:03]Stop.

[00:06:08]Watch out.

[00:06:14]Man, leave [snorts] that.

[00:06:19]All right, he's on the bottom. You're good.

[00:06:21]It's okay.

[00:06:24]You're going to put her straight in the water? Cuz we should know pretty quickly. Uh let me just move him.

[00:06:29]He's awake.

[00:06:31]Yeah, I'm going to drop her into his jungle.

[00:06:33]>> Can you move her to the other side? He's deep, so.

[00:06:37]He did not like that stick.

[00:06:42]All right.

[00:06:44]Here you go.

[00:06:51]The water looks good.

[00:06:53]Yeah, he just stirred it up, but yeah.

[00:07:01]So, she's also in the water.

[00:07:04]So, we'll just watch them throughout the day.

[00:07:15]Okay, well, we will have to wait and see how it goes.

[00:07:22]So far, he's very fixated on me.

[00:07:25]He's not going after her. He knows she's in there. He can definitely I can smell her. He can smell her. They have a better sense of smell than we do.

[00:07:34]Not that gators stink.

[00:07:37]Got to go through that whole thing, cuz then people are like, "What? They smell?" They don't smell. Can you smell it?

[00:07:43]No, but usually I can. Yeah, so >> Like the pheromones.

[00:07:46]>> Yeah, so because, you know, when you when you pick them up and they're fighting and everything, they uh they'll evert their scent glands they have at like they have gular scent glands under the neck, and then they also have cloacal ones.

[00:07:58]Um so, I can smell that. It's very faint. Um how would you even describe that smell?

[00:08:04]People are going to ask. I don't think it's a bad smell.

[00:08:07]>> Yeah. No, it's it's not a bad smell. It doesn't It doesn't stink or anything.

[00:08:11]It's like like very slightly musty, maybe. But like It's not like a snake. Well, yeah, but put it to you this way, guys. A snake must stink.

[00:08:21]If everybody watching this video was standing right there watching this go down, you wouldn't smell it.

[00:08:26]You know? And you probably wouldn't smell it if you were right here next to me, cuz you don't You don't know what you're smelling for, yeah. You know, it is like a very it's >> it now, actually.

[00:08:35]>> It's very very low. Um Kind of hard to detect, you know? But uh it cuz people do ask that one all the time, you know, "Oh my god, do they stink? They must stink." Like they they literally Oh, there she is.

[00:08:48]Go, go, Ballerina.

[00:08:50]>> went down. Uh they do not stink at all.

[00:08:52]Obviously, if they go to the bathroom, that smells, but otherwise, like alligators do not stink. You can only smell that like pheromone smell thing, and you really are only going to know it if you know what you're looking for to pick it up. You know? Smelling for.

[00:09:07]Yeah. Not looking for.

[00:09:08]>> Smelling for. Yeah. Otherwise, you're you're probably not going to know. But yeah, people that that's one of the more common questions people ask, "Oh my god, they must stink." I'm like, "You know what stinks? Humans." All right, we've got Milo, the new skunk, and Asami, who have not met each other for the first time.

[00:09:26]Although, he's going to stand there just to see how it goes at first.

[00:09:31]Come on, buddy.

[00:09:36]Come here, chunky.

[00:09:38]Asami.

[00:09:40]Come here, Asami.

[00:10:01]>> You literally don't care, do you?

[00:10:03]Want to see Sammy? You don't want to meet a new skunk?

[00:10:09]Sammy.

[00:10:11]You want to come out and meet him?

[00:10:27]I don't know if the phone is picking it up, but they're both doing a low grunting sound now.

[00:10:35]Now she's laid down though.

[00:10:51]He's so much smaller than her.

[00:11:32]Mhm.

[00:11:33]But she's still hunkered down in there.

[00:11:35]She hasn't moved.

[00:11:36]She looks uh like she doesn't really care.

[00:11:42]Yeah, she's like going back to sleep.

[00:11:45]Literally, she just curled up in a ball.

[00:11:48]She does not care about him.

[00:12:40]She's so much bigger.

[00:13:12]So Chris is just trying to get some of the grapevines off of the fencing so it can be visually inspected. And we're also raising the piping for all of them.

[00:13:22]Um if you guys have been following for a while, you'll remember in the summer we had this like a pipe just like that, kind of like a little waterfall effect.

[00:13:29]It's really pretty.

[00:13:31]But in the winter we had to put them in the water just so it stayed warmer because obviously there is some temperature loss when it's 4 ft off the ground.

[00:13:42]But it looks better when it's raised. And it also disturbs the uh surface more to prevent insects and things like that.

[00:13:51]Although we're in a drought right now, so there's not a lot of water for them to have their larvae. So the mosquitoes and the deer flies really aren't bad this year.

[00:14:03]Which is a blessing and a curse, you know, cuz a lot of animals are really struggling with the drought. We also have little mosquito fish in every single pond. They do a really good job eating the larvae, too.

[00:14:12]So yeah, as of right now we are not getting chewed up by insects and it's pretty nice.

[00:14:18]Look how much better that looks. And we just did Shiloh's, and hers is all muddy because she just went into the water.

[00:14:26]Here is Shiloh, the saltwater crocodile, our newest crocodile that came to the sanctuary.

[00:14:32]And she's always hiding, so this is the closest I've ever been to her when she's out on land. I mean, I'm I'm on the other side of the fence, but still.

[00:14:42]You know, she always dives in the water.

[00:14:44]We never get to see her up close like this, so it's pretty cool.

[00:14:49]She looks pretty good.

[00:14:54]That's awesome.

[00:15:05]Okay, so this is all the grapevine I just cut from I put it into a bucket, so it looks like a nest anyways, but that's all what I just cut from the back of the croc temp ponds. We'll put it in here for the beavers.

[00:15:19]We'll get that uh that camera going and try to get some more footage of them at night.

[00:15:28]Don't run it over. I I knew he was going to do that.

[00:15:32]>> he had the bucket.

[00:15:34]If you get rid of the bucket, he won't.

[00:15:41]There.

[00:15:46]Behold, sir.

[00:15:49]The honorary tortoise.

[00:15:55]He tracks me out.

[00:16:02]That bucket's like a bull fighter's cape or something.

[00:16:34]Wow, they're excited.

[00:16:38]Oh, there's little Loretta and her little exposed booty.

[00:16:43]Remember she had really bad shell rot when she first came in.

[00:16:51]Here are the three leopard tortoises.

[00:16:54]I just picked them all up and brought them over here.

[00:16:59]All three of our leopard tortoises have pretty disfigured shells from improper captive care before they were here.

[00:17:06]This guy's got a shark fin.

[00:17:08]It's supposed to be nice and smooth.

[00:17:12]They have crazy good camouflage though.

[00:17:14]Like it really is amazing cuz I have to go find them and bring them to the food bowl, you know?

[00:17:19]Why do you want to eat the one piece like why?

[00:17:23]The one piece that's already being eaten, you want to sit in the middle of the bowl and take that one from him.

[00:17:38]There is Shelly, the sulcata, with our two aldabra tortoises, which is the second largest tortoise species.

[00:17:48]I just carried the aldabras over.

[00:17:50]Shelly came running over on her own. As you can see, she's very excited.

[00:18:05]Oh, look at that boy.

[00:18:08]Old Yeller.

[00:18:10]Old Yeller.

[00:18:14]Hi, buddy.

[00:18:15]Hi, big boy.

[00:18:21]Hi, big boy. Oh, he's a good boy.

[00:18:25]And there's little Hopscotch, the gopher tortoise, inside of his little burrow we made him.

[00:18:31]Quote unquote burrow.

[00:18:32]He's chowing down.

[00:18:34]Remember he's the one that was sadly attacked by dogs and ended up at the rehabber.

[00:18:41]Lost his little arm.

[00:18:43]But now he's got a great home with us.

[00:18:46]And then his close relative is this California desert tortoise over here named Flynn.