10ft Gator knows his name as I swim with him!! New Parrot!

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:02]Good luck.

[00:00:06]All right, let's demonstrate how well he knows his name. So, if I call him over here, even if I put the chicken, like let's say I'm going to put it underwater behind me, he can't see it. And then I call him Big Mac.

[00:00:16]Look at that. Big Mac. Good boy. Hope he's jigging.

[00:00:21]There you go. Oh, is that good? Is that good stuff, Big Mac?

[00:00:32]So, there we have a great demonstration of how this alligator is trained. He is not tame. He knows his name. Uh, but you saw the camera get a little too close there and he spun around to try to nail the camera. So, I have to be very careful with him at all times. He will bite the hand that feeds. And you could have the food and your hand. He will take both of them. No problem. And he won't feel bad about it whatsoever. He would take my head off, eat it, crush it, doesn't care. Could he physically do that? A lot of people don't believe me.

[00:01:00]He could literally rip my head off my shoulders. Keep in mind, this is a an alligator that is over 10 feet long.

[00:01:06]When we look at his big old cheeks, oh, he's trying to bite my hand. But if we get a look, that's his jaw muscle. Those things right there. It's the jaw muscle.

[00:01:17]So, that's what gives him all that immense amount of crushing force. Uh, big gator can bite down with over 2,000 lbs per square inch of power. So, yes, he literally crushed my head like a grape and he would love to do it if I let him.

[00:01:31]Good boy.

[00:01:34]Jesus. They're on. Now, we look at his eyes. Oh, there it is. You can see his nictitating membrane goes sideways across the eye. So, they will put that up to protect the eye and then also to clear the eye without having to blink.

[00:01:47]So, instead of having to fully blink and lose vision for a moment, he can flick that up and it's somewhat transparent.

[00:01:52]Now, he cannot see as well out of that membrane as he can out of just, you know, his regular eyes. Now, a lot of times when they go underneath the water, they also put it up entirely just to protect the eye underneath the water, kind of like a pair of swimming goggles for him. But also, when they're under the water, if they really want to be able to see, they just don't put it up at all. So, when I'm diving with wild alligators, a lot of times they'll come up, they have that up, and if you do it right, you can come in and uh don't scare them. They'll just sit totally still, and they think they're relying on their camouflage. And then when you get close enough, they will flick that membrane back and look at you with their normal eye without moving anything else in the body. And it's always like like because now you know he's really looking at you.

[00:02:35]So if I touch near his eye, he usually will put that up too. And then this is the ear right here. So this little opening on the side right there, that's his ear. And so they can actually seal off the ear to keep out water. So this whole piece right here can actually move. Isn't that right, buddy?

[00:02:56]Oh, Bella.

[00:02:58]Bella, come here. Bella, come here, Bella.

[00:03:04]Bella, come on. Bella, come here. We're trying to eat. George jumping. Bella, you're going to have to struggle this way.

[00:03:21]pretty fixated. And he's coming to me.

[00:03:27]Fella, fella.

[00:03:31]Here comes Big Mac.

[00:03:34]Big Mac.

[00:03:49]Oh, he missed both of those.

[00:03:56]>> George, you're supposed to be in the water with me.

[00:03:58]>> I know.

[00:04:17]Bella.

[00:04:20]Bella.

[00:04:20]>> What?

[00:04:22]>> She's very interested in you. Bella.

[00:04:26]>> More than interested. Bella, come on.

[00:04:29]Bella, come here.

[00:04:32]Bella.

[00:04:35]Bella.

[00:04:40]Bella.

[00:04:47]Philly.

[00:05:17]Hello, crazy girl.

[00:05:28]All right, see how we do juggling these two.

[00:05:31]Here we go. This works you.

[00:05:42]Come on.

[00:05:46]You bad girl. Look at that bad girl.

[00:05:53]So, today is Bella's 2-year anniversary here at the sanctuary, and she was our first alligator to join us. It's pretty exciting. And now she's just a menace.

[00:06:12]Bella, why are you so difficult?

[00:06:15]Bella, come here. Big girl.

[00:06:20]Bella.

[00:06:26]Bella. Come on, Bella.

[00:06:30]Come on, Bella.

[00:06:32]Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella, Big Mac, Big Mac.

[00:06:58]Total miss again. Big Mac.

[00:07:02]Why? Why?

[00:07:16]You just being chased endlessly over there.

[00:07:20]Big man.

[00:07:31]Get away from me.

[00:07:38]That's funny.

[00:07:41]I'm try to give her a bunch.

[00:07:44]>> Maybe she'll stop here. A little fella.

[00:07:53]this up.

[00:07:56]There you go.

[00:08:19]Big man.

[00:08:22]Come on.

[00:08:28]Go big guy.

[00:08:31]Look at this big goofball.

[00:08:34]Look at this big goofball.

[00:08:37]Big deadly predator.

[00:08:44]We're using the signature tongue depressor.

[00:08:56]>> She loves you, >> zombie. I think once I just give her enough, maybe she'll not be so persistent with you. Bella, come here, Bella.

[00:09:17]fella.

[00:09:21]>> She's like, I can't see you, so you don't exist.

[00:09:24]>> She's like, I'm busy. This guy's going to get eaten. Bella.

[00:09:32]Bella, come here. Bella, come on. Not Not you. That's not your name. Bella.

[00:09:39]Bella. Come here.

[00:09:47]Bella.

[00:09:50]Bella.

[00:09:52]Come here. Bella.

[00:09:56]Bella.

[00:10:02]Oh, she dropped it. All right. Fine. Big Mac.

[00:10:14]Big night.

[00:10:27]>> Why? She's coming for me. Why is she coming for me?

[00:10:30]>> Just completely ignoring my face right next to her.

[00:10:33]>> Yeah, >> she is a woman on a mission.

[00:10:38]That mission is to eat George.

[00:10:40]>> Legit.

[00:10:48]>> This is what it tastes like. It tastes like stick.

[00:10:58]>> We are quickly running out of chicken.

[00:11:00]>> I know.

[00:11:01]>> Just trying to satiate her.

[00:11:07]Bella.

[00:11:09]Bella.

[00:11:11]Well, she slowed down a little here. Let me try to get him.

[00:11:15]Big man.

[00:11:29]Big Mac.

[00:11:32]Pup. Stop trying to bite me.

[00:11:37]Big Mac.

[00:11:46]Bella.

[00:11:47]Bella.

[00:11:56]There you go.

[00:11:59]Just immediately turns to try to get you.

[00:12:04]girl.

[00:12:08]Why you want to eat George so bad? Huh?

[00:12:31]I just see what he's going to do. Just trying to feel him out a little bit.

[00:12:36]Hi.

[00:12:38]Hello. So, when you look at their face, they have those little tiny black dots along the face. Those are his integimementaryary sensory organs, which he uses to feel around, especially in murky water.

[00:12:52]Those are 10 times as sensitive as a human fingertip, according to a study.

[00:12:58]Not that I have tested this myself.

[00:13:01]Oh, don't you try to bite me.

[00:13:08]Hi, buddy.

[00:13:10]That big guy.

[00:13:19]Look at the size of him.

[00:13:28]I wish I was strong enough to just pick him up. But he's too heavy. I could maybe bring him out like that. But he's just too heavy now. He's very tolerant though. He's just letting me play with him and pick him up like that.

[00:13:43]Thankfully, he's being a very good boy.

[00:13:47]If he didn't want me doing that, there's no way you could hold an alligator in that position.

[00:13:54]Yeah. Look at him all the way. Tail back here. Nose up there.

[00:14:02]There's a big dude.

[00:14:05]He's uh well, he came in at 10 foot two just about two years ago. So, I would like to measure him again. Did an idea.

[00:14:14]Hi. Oh, hi.

[00:14:36]Oh, he's being so chill though.

[00:14:40]Now, when you look inside of his mouth, see all those teeth? You can check out he's actually got like a brown tooth right here next to these white teeth. So, this is one of his original teeth from when he was in the wild before he came here. And so that one is stained from the mud and the river and the tanic acid and whatnot from where he was out in Payne's prairie. And then you see these nice white teeth are ones he has shed since.

[00:15:03]So they naturally shed and regrow their teeth and cycle through several thousand teeth in a lifetime. Now each tooth is said to last around 2 years. He's been here 2 years. So I am waiting to see if one of these older teeth are going to pop out soon here.

[00:15:19]Now you can see a lot of his inside teeth. Well, pretty much all of those are all nice and white since when the mouth is closed, as you can see, they are tucked in. And so those ones stay white usually, even on a alligator in the wild where the top teeth can get stained. A lot of times those inner the uh bottom jaw teeth that are locked on the inside stay white most of the time since they're not being exposed to the elements. Think of it like like coffee staining your teeth. Hi.

[00:15:47]Oh, hello. Hi, big guy. Oh, you come give me a kiss. Oh, look at him. He's being so good. Oh, he's being a good boy. Kind of. Oh, he's being a good boy.

[00:16:00]>> Oh, look at him being going into the water. Where's the Osmo?

[00:16:03]I feel like that's good.

[00:16:06]Oh, god.

[00:16:08]He's Oh, okay. He's turning around. Oh, I hate that. Oh, what is this? What behavior is this? Chris, do you want stick? Why is he coming to me?

[00:16:21]Oh, he's What is he doing? What is he What is he doing?

[00:16:29]He's being freaky, dude.

[00:16:33]Oh, here's Maleficent.

[00:16:36]Oh, she's being crazy. Our Asian water monitor.

[00:16:40]Sorry, guys. camera is going to be all over the place cuz I'm by myself and I'm trying to feed her carefully.

[00:16:52]And then also I got to keep the food back here.

[00:17:07]What do you think? Huh? Oh, look at her.

[00:17:10]Look at her go.

[00:17:13]She is awesome.

[00:17:41]What do you think? Huh?

[00:17:44]Isn't that yummy?

[00:17:48]All right, let me last uh last big old piece for you. Let's see if I can get it.

[00:17:58]Do it. Go for it. Yeah.

[00:18:03]into the water a little bit.

[00:18:16]I guess that piece was a little big for her.

[00:18:24]>> Goodness gracious.

[00:18:26]>> Yeah, Gab, you go in there.

[00:18:27]>> No thanks.

[00:18:28]>> Why don't you go move him? No thanks.

[00:18:30]>> Gabby just said I'm dramatic when I said I have to go fight the crocodile cuz we're trying to leaf blow and put some fresh grass seed in there. Fight the crocodile. You're so dramatic.

[00:18:40]You You go in here.

[00:18:49]I just can't even get anywhere here. I'm not trying to touch your face, buddy, but there's no room here. Sorry.

[00:19:14]Keep that door open.

[00:19:24]We see he's going to go for a roll.

[00:19:28]Okay.

[00:19:29]>> Can you keep them in and I'll leaf blow?

[00:19:31]>> Yep.

[00:19:32]>> Are you sure?

[00:19:34]>> Pretty sure. Be ready to run.

[00:19:42]>> Oh, look at that. Don't do that. Don't do that.

[00:19:49]>> Wow. Good.

[00:19:53]>> Protect me.

[00:19:56]Can I go in that corner safely and get that safely? But >> she doesn't care about grass.

[00:20:14]>> Smells like crocodile first, doesn't it?

[00:20:20]>> Babe, do you smell that?

[00:20:21]>> What? She turned.

[00:20:23]>> Uhoh.

[00:20:24]Dangerous animal.

[00:20:28]>> All right, here's Jawbreaker alligator snapping turtle. Gabby's feeding them.

[00:20:34]>> I hear baby owls.

[00:20:36]>> You can hear them out there.

[00:20:52]I hear them. The baby owls.

[00:20:59]Look at them.

[00:21:10]He's stirring up all this algae. Grab that out.

[00:21:19]>> He is hungry.

[00:21:21]He's excited.

[00:21:24]>> Pretty gentle.

[00:21:59]Can you see him on camera?

[00:22:01]>> Uh, kind of.

[00:22:05]>> Bring him to you.

[00:22:08]>> So fast.

[00:22:21]Oh, there you go, Gretchen.

[00:22:23]>> She's so gentle.

[00:22:25]>> She's so cute. So, Gretchen is our other alligator snapping turtle. Both of our snappers are here because they were hit by cars. And as you can see, Gretchen is missing the top of her beak.

[00:22:50]Hello.

[00:22:51]>> Hello.

[00:22:56]>> Hi, Rick. How you doing? How you doing?

[00:23:01]Hello.

[00:23:12]Let's go feed some animals, Rick. Come here. Go feed the animals.

[00:23:17]Hi, Rick. Rick.

[00:23:20]Oh, look at the fic foxes. There's Chuck.

[00:23:29]And there's the naughty kawad back. Look at him.

[00:23:33]There's Blanco.

[00:23:36]How you doing, Blanco?

[00:23:43]There's Roco and Gigi. Next, we're going to have Blanco, Lola, and Lily. Come on, Lil.

[00:23:57]>> Hi, R.

[00:24:05]Blanco.

[00:24:13]He's so cute. He loves his grapes.

[00:24:20]You can see when they put their head back, chew like that, they've got some serious teeth in there, which is why these things should not be pets.

[00:24:30]Oh, Timothy always pulling the bull.

[00:24:37]this is Timothy and Tanga Patagonian and Mars.

[00:24:42]Why you do that, Timothy?

[00:24:49]So, they are a large rodent species.

[00:24:52]Think of them like a giant guinea pig with silk legs.

[00:24:56]Most people see them, they think they're like a giant rabbit deer thing, but no.

[00:25:03]Then Tanga here, the female on the left, she has a tear duct. You see that sticking out on her lower eyelid that like fluctuates and it'll become swollen and then it'll become small and like we already had the vet check it out. So today is a day where it's definitely very swollen. But every day the vet check it out and yeah, it's just a thing that she does.

[00:25:26]Here's Miss Ua chowing on some chicken.

[00:25:31]And then we got Kira back there.

[00:25:34]She's too cool today, I guess. But there goes UA with her big old huge chicken quarter.

[00:25:42]Then Hazel's excited as always.

[00:25:46]There you go, Hazel.

[00:25:49]Oh. Oh, trying to get Clover.

[00:25:53]Clover is not invited to the party.

[00:26:00]There's Shipo up top.

[00:26:04]Oh, she's watching Clover.

[00:26:10]She can't She can't get to your food, you know. Look at her trying to sneak.

[00:26:30]And here's little Milo.

[00:26:33]Hi you little guy.

[00:26:36]Look at this tail.

[00:26:38]Look at this tail, Milo. Dude, he is all about the food.

[00:26:44]A ravenous little creature.

[00:26:49]Can't even see his face. He's buried in the bowl.

[00:26:58]Look at him.

[00:27:08]He's warming up to us a little bit.

[00:27:11]Let's just sit here and play with him a bit more.

[00:27:24]Snack time for the Fenix. Here you go.

[00:27:26]Not really finger food today. Here you go. There's Jet. There goes Sierra back there. Here the emu's drumming and being crazy.

[00:27:40]Oh, lookam back there.

[00:27:49]So, they got some blueberries, a bunch of superworms, which I don't really want to hand feed them superworms. They're so small. I'm going to definitely get some fox teeth in my fingers.

[00:28:03]And they got some apple. And was that papaya?

[00:28:16]So this is Sheldon. Hi Sheldon.

[00:28:20]Hi. And he's a blue and gold macaw. So this is his little temporary setup. Oh, look. He's drinking. Until we uh He dropped something. Till we build him a nice big permanent enclosure. Right now, he's in this little aviary. Hi, buddy.

[00:28:36]So, Sheldon went through what, like five different homes before coming here. So, he came to us from Wildwood Animal Rescue and they had adopted him out like five different times. He joined one family. Uh he's really nice and sweet and then well he's macaw so he's super loud and starts screaming and they would send him back and then he get adopted again and sent back again and adopted again and sent back again.

[00:28:58]>> She also said he is like an aviary bird.

[00:29:02]He does not do well in the home in a cage. He gets super broody like literally she said like a broody hen.

[00:29:09]And he gets super aggressive and tries to attack. Like if you put him in a a cage in the house, he'll go to the bottom of the cage and start nesting even though he's male. So she really wanted him to be in an aviary.

[00:29:20]>> Yeah. How we doing, buddy? Hi.

[00:29:26]>> Give him a pine nut.

[00:29:28]>> Just one, Greedy. Did you get it? Oh, no.

[00:29:34]Just one, sassy boy. Okay.

[00:29:37]>> He wants them all.

[00:29:38]>> He wants my fingers. You want this?

[00:29:40]Look.

[00:29:44]Well, >> if you're going to bite me, I'm not going to give you one.

[00:29:46]>> Well, I think he's just trying to get them. I think he's trying to bite you.

[00:29:48]>> You can use your hand.

[00:29:51]>> If you're so confident about >> What do you think, Sheldon?

[00:29:55]It's cute. Hi, baby. Prickles, come over here.

[00:30:02]Let's get you walking. There you go.

[00:30:04]Look at her go.

[00:30:12]Got some banana.

[00:30:22]That's a hot one today, guys. And you can tell by her quills here, her quills are flat.

[00:30:28]I don't know why that would make her cooler, but I have definitely noticed when it's hotter out, her quills look flat.

[00:30:45]Now, her uh her heated house, if we don't put the heat on, it's definitely cooler in there. I can feel it. So, she's probably going to spend most of the day in there.

[00:31:02]Those little whiskers.

[00:31:27]I'm going to use the prehens cell too.

[00:31:36]And here's the sami. Oh, you got a stick in your fur. What is this?

[00:31:42]What do I stick in your fur?

[00:31:51]So, as you know, usual, I like to remind everybody the skunks are descented. Both of our skunks came to us through the exotic pet tray. They're both former pets that were uh surrendered over to the sanctuary.

[00:32:01]And as is done in the exotic pet trade, when they captively breed skunks specifically to be pets, they remove the scent glands when they are little itty bitty babies. Obviously, they're not selling uh fully loaded skunks into the pet trade, spraying people in the face and whatnot.

[00:32:27]>> Hi, Coopy Dupy.

[00:32:30]There's not a thought between those eyes. Look at him. You're the goofiest little bird we got. There's Cupid. And then uh there's Chloe coming over. Hi, Chlo. Here's Olaf. He's a very smart boy.

[00:32:46]There's Azula.

[00:32:48]He's a very vicious girl. Yeah.

[00:32:52]Here's Suki the golden conor. Hi, Suki.

[00:32:56]And then we got Bluebird. Hi, Bluebird.

[00:33:01]There's a little button quail.

[00:33:03]They got some greens and some uh what is that? The end of some papaya, some mango, some millet to pick at.

[00:33:16]Now we got the finches. Got some of them up over there.

[00:33:21]Got most of them up over here.

[00:33:35]That one's in little box.

[00:33:43]Chili bean. Oh, we got some super worms.

[00:33:47]We got some super worms. Yeah.

[00:33:51]I'm excited.

[00:33:55]a happy toucan.

[00:33:57]You being a happy toucan.

[00:34:00]You seem a little little nippy earlier, so I'm not trusting you. Yeah, I don't trust you today.

[00:34:10]That poor superworm.

[00:34:13]You going to play with it or you going to eat it? You got more in there. What do you think?

[00:34:21]You got lots of good food.

[00:34:26]There you go. Oh, maybe not. Oh, there it goes.

[00:34:30]Got super worms, blueberry, raspberry, dragon fruit, cucumber, some papaya.

[00:34:38]There's little pellets.

[00:34:43]All right, now we're feeding the little guys using cockatails.

[00:34:49]Someone is insisting on landing on my head. It's little pretty bird. Oh, and there you go. Back to try to land on my head.

[00:35:18]Pretty bird. Hi, pretty bird.

[00:35:23]Hi pretty bird.

[00:36:18]And this is where the prairie dogs are today. Well, for a while. Unfortunately, they're going to be in this because we got the new baby right here. And so, they have to acclimate. So, they're just going to be side by side here, being able to smell each other, see each other, and then we will slowly be able to put them into the same enclosure and not in their real enclosure in a neutral spot, and then eventually into their real enclosure. Rack, rack, rack. So, I was just walking with Rick and trying to get her to flap her wings, and she's not doing it right now. And literally, me and Gabri just walking the trail, and I'm like, "Come on, Rick. Flap." Oh, piggy. I just looked down. Oh, there's a piggy rattlesnake.

[00:36:57]>> Rattlesnake.

[00:37:05]>> Look at all these little baby spiders that must have just recently hatched out.

[00:37:12]There's a ton of them in there.

[00:37:19]Oh, hello baby prickles.

[00:37:22]You want a grape?

[00:37:24]What do you think?

[00:37:28]No. This does not please you. It's not good enough.

[00:37:35]Maybe.

[00:37:40]There you go.

[00:37:42]She could probably smell the biscuit. I do have one of her biscuits, but I wanted to try the grape first. So, you see that big old nose and those whiskers going. I think she knew I had some more, but trying to get her to eat that first.

[00:37:58]What do you think? Huh? Is that an acceptable offering for you?

[00:38:06]She's so cute. Oh, she's so cute.

[00:38:12]Oh, dinner time. Asami.

[00:38:16]Look at that. Oh, you grab the celery.

[00:38:18]You didn't want that celery. I knew that. Meal worms were on the celery there. That's what she's grabbing.

[00:38:26]We got some super worms. Very excited.

[00:38:38]And my headlight is attracting a mosquito hawk. Come on, dude.

[00:38:46]I got like PTSD about wearing headlamps and bugs and after I had that one go straight into my ear canal and that was just a horrific experience.

[00:38:58]There goes Sierra.

[00:39:02]Can you guys hear the baby owls?

[00:39:05]They're out there. They're pretty close.

[00:39:10]Jet was just right next to me.

[00:39:20]Do not tell me that's the same mosquito.

[00:39:24]I think I don't think it's the same one.

[00:39:28]There he is.

[00:39:36]Here's little Milo.

[00:39:38]I'm holding the bowl down because he always flips it. I want to be able to see his face a little bit.

[00:39:45]Not that you could even real see it anyways because he's just going to bury his face. And it either way, he's a little wet. There's porn rain earlier.

[00:40:04]So, his enclosure is covered except like right there. So, I guess that's where he was.

[00:40:14]There's the baby owls.

[00:40:19]Look at them out there.

[00:40:22]Oh, that's the mom feeding.

[00:40:25]Yeah, totally. The mom's on the right.

[00:40:31]It's really hard. Oh, there she goes.

[00:40:37]Far as I could tell.

[00:40:42]It's hard to tell in the dark.

[00:40:45]Yeah, it was because that's both babies right there. Yeah. Oh, they're looking at me. That's both babies and then the mom flew off that way.

[00:40:55]Oh, hello Bucky.

[00:40:57]Hi, Bucky. Oh, you want that little biscuit?

[00:41:04]So, that water was not that color yesterday. So, they must have dragged in their branches. We gave him a bunch of new branches and they must have dragged a bunch in. That's tanic acid staining or Bucky has been just peeing profusely.

[00:41:19]I'm I'm kidding, of course. Um, but yeah, so that's tanic acid coloration in the water, which is crazy cuz we actually have not had that happen before, but I could see the clump of leaves down there. So, must be what it was. I can also see Teddy in the water.

[00:41:34]So, both Bucky and Teddy are in the water right now.

[00:41:39]Oh, he's back. You want this? You want this?

[00:41:44]Yeah.

[00:41:46]Think that's some butternut squash?

[00:41:51]You better share with Teddy.

[00:41:55]Oh, look at this bucky beaver chowing down.

[00:41:59]He looks very happy.

[00:42:12]And then there's Teddy.

[00:42:29]Hi Bucky.