Andrew: Probably the most important thing is never forgetting that you're dealing with
a potentially dangerous animal.
Andrew: There's kind of a saying, working with animals, especially dangerous animals,
it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when.
Andrew: Crusher is definitely the largest crocodilian that I work with.
He's about 14 foot long.
And he probably weighs about 1000 pounds.
Andrew: Crusher is the biggest.
alligators and crocodiles they have the strongest bite force
of any animal in the animal kingdom,
they can bite down between 2500 pounds
to 3000 pounds per square inch of by force and all that
that power is in closing
so if you look behind his jaws,
he's got kind of these big fatty pockets.
That's actually their jaw muscles.
My name is Andrew Bidel, I'm one of the Co-curators at Wild Florida.
I'm looking forward to doing the crusher shows.
Announcer: Say hi Andrew. Crowd: Hi Andrew.
Announcer: Now get ready to say bye Andrew.
Andrew: There is sometimes where he's a little pushy or let's you know say he's being extra
fired up. He is full of energy
so he's you know, he's coming over quick he might lunge up at me really fast and
as long as I always kind of keep that respect for him.
I'm always a little cautious but I'm not really nervous.
He is a little feisty so we'll see how he acts today Its super hot so that's when they are the most active.
you never know,
Andrew: There's kind of a saying working with animals especially
dangerous animals it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when.
you get bit so we always kind of try to keep that mindset.
The biggest problem you can have as being complicit,
or kind of loosen that fear or respect.
Andrew: He's probably 65 years old.
And he was a nuisance trapped alligator so he was brought to the park about six years ago.
He was already pretty much 14 foot almost 1000 pounds.
Andrew: Up.
Announcer: So look at that.
He's asking Crusher to come up.
He's being rewarded for good behaviour.
Andrew: Within,
within you know a short period time we're able to train him into the alligator he is and
you know who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks so?
Announcer: So you guys want to speed things up? Let's speed things up.
Announcer: Alligators are much more agile
and are much quicker in the water.
Andrew: Good boy.
Andrew: Crusher was really good for the show.
He held all of his commands, he wasn't pushy so he did really good.
In my spare time, I also take care of
my personal collection of animals, which includes big snakes, crocodiles.
Andrew: Good girl.
and bobcats.
The most unusual animal s probably our Mata mata turtle.
It's a really silly looking turtle from South America.
So their head is kind of shaped like a leaf.
And then he's got this really, this little snorkel nose. So they'll stick their little
their head up and get their nose out of the water.
So it's supposed to look like a, leaf litter at the bottom of a river. Its their camouflage.
My green anaconda is pretty large. she's about,
16 foot and
over 150 pounds, probably closer, 175 pounds.
So she's a big girl.
She's right around 10 years old,
They can live 30 plus years. So she's still got a lot of growing.
And she could potentially get twice this size.
Our kids even though they're still young, they're very passionate about animals, they love all animals.
We always keep our, our family, our kids safety, priority number one.
Andrew: We try to pride ourself on kind of be involved, being aware
teaching our kids
what they should do, how they should react,
So with otters, they're really cute and alot of people want to keep them as pets.
but they do not make good pets.
Andrew: They require a lot of care. They eat a lot. fish isn't very cheap they eat a lot of fish.
They need a big water source. So we have to have a big pool for them.
They're kind of smelly, and then they also have a crazy strong bite.
Our Bobcat was actually born at my work.
Andrew: His name is Thanos. Because my children named him.
The mother had complications. Unfortunately, when she gave birth, so we had to pull him at a week old.
So we raised him since he was one week old.
Jacob likes to be really involved with the bobcat.
The bobcats sleeps in bed with him at night.
If Alex is taking a bath, he loves with getting in the tub with Alex
so they both kind of interact with him a lot.
So this is Nala. And she's our Florida panther ambassador.
So with any big cats, any predatory animals, I mean, they're potentially dangerous.
Even though we raised Nala from a cub.
Christian: Andrew is really one of the best animal trainers I've ever met.
He really has a general respect for all the animals. I learn a lot from him every day.
I never stopped and he's super, super awesome fun guy. Very positive.
Super, super cool.
Andrew: Pretty sure she's gonna stalk me right now.
Now she's sneaking over. Come on.
Good girl.
Andrew: We try to be very involved in conservation.
Announcer: Welcome to our alligator feeding shows as the title might give away
more than that, we're going to be feeding some of our adult alligators in this pond.
Andrew: The kind of motto we like to use is conservation through education.
So, it's as simple as taking analligator to a school and talking about, Alligator awareness.
Announcer: It's going to be epic.
Announcer: You hear that alligator? going to help you now.
Andrew: Growing up in Florida, living in Florida,
what to do to be safe around alligators.
Andrew: The biggest just misconception is that reptiles are, you know, scary and they want to eat us.
And it's unfortunate. And they're very interesting, fascinating animals.
So we always try to do everything we can to inform people.
Announcer: So a lot of people will ask, Well, how do alligators jump?
A lot of people think well, they use their feet, their legs something like that.
So that's not true.
alligators use their tail to jump out of the water
Let's see if I can go in and in hand feed some of these alligators.
Just hopefully not feed their hands to them that'd be really bad.
Andrew: So that's our main goal is to kind of be able to spread our passion,
What we love about animals the most and hopefully people will go with that.