(upbeat funk music)
- So excited today guys,
because we're actually down at the Everglades Outpost.
We're going to meet up with Chris and Gabby friends of mine
and Casper, the famous Casper alligator.
The training that Chris does is next level
when it comes to crocodilians. So to spend the day with him,
it's going to be absolutely amazing.
The first thing we're going to do is getting with Casper
and we're going to get an opportunity
to see what he does here,
which is really, truly incredible.
Then we'll get a chance to see some other animals
that he's interacting with,
learn how to deal with crocodiles and alligators.
So if you guys were like,
hey, I want to one day work with alligators,
this is the guy to talk to.
So we're going to have a great time here
at the Everglades Outpost,
just a really great place and get to know as much
about this place and the opportunities that you can have
if you're ever in South Florida.
So let's go ahead and gear up and get into walk.
- [Chris] How's that feel, bro?
- It's cold.
But I listen, I'm, I'm a wimp, but it's cold.
It's it's all right, though.
This is what I've been waiting for.
I've been following Chris forever on his journey
and it's amazing to finally be here. Thank you so much.
- Yeah, dude.
- It's the best. I mean, he's the best.
There's no doubt about it. And I'm excited.
So obviously we got Casper just walking over.
In a minute here I'm going to be able to get in the water.
I will be behind a little protective area, just, you know,
Florida regulations and stuff like that,
but that's completely fine
'cause we're going to be able to see just how Casper reacts
and how Chris actually works with them,
which is going to be amazing.
Look at this little silly monkey.
- [Chris] He's so cute.
- [Brian] Oh my God, I love him.
- Come.
- [Brian] Chris, now is he coming at the sound of your voice
or is it word commands.
- It's specific words.
'Cause right now I can sit here and talk to you
and blah, blah, blah, and he's not moving now, you know?
So I can sit here and have a full conversation,
he's totally fine.
Come.
So lazy. Casper, come. Come on.
You're very lazy today.
- One of the females coming up over here.
She actually has a broken bottom jaw.
- [Brian] That female?
- Yeah and her tongue hangs out.
- Oh wow.
- Yeah, you'll see it in the water.
See here?
- [Brian] Oh wow.
- Then we got him over here.
Actually see like his size.
See how big he is, how long he is.
He's about, what were the measurements? Like nine seven,
he's like 250 pounds. He'll come right up.
Come up.
Good boy.
There he is. One good guy.
So he's very, very calm.
Very well behaved.
- I mean can you believe that, guys? That's like,
that's a dinosaur that he has trained.
- So I'm going to call him over out of the way,
and then we'll have you come in.
- I'm getting guys.
So here I am in the water.
And of course, we've got this little,
just some netting right here.
(Chris laughing)
So what is the normal experiences like, what do we do?
- Right, so this is a tour that anybody can come and do,
right? So you can come,
you can get in the water with me and Casper
behind the safety net.
And so what the people do on the tours,
what you are doing right now. You hang out,
you get a very awesome, up-close look at Casper.
Get to check him out.
And then the other cool part
is I have this underwater camera
and we shoot with this.
- [Brian] Oh my God that's dope. Look at that.
That's cool.
Okay. So I've got a little bit of envy there.
Your rig is bigger than mine.
(both laughing)
- So this is my underwater camera set up
and I know everybody asks, how much is that?
So this whole setup is about $10,000.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, wow.
- Yeah. Okay.
- [Brian] But that's amazing.
- So this is what I do all my shots with,
like when I was shooting the Nile crocs in Africa
or the sharks I go out, like tiger sharks, stuff like that.
So that's all what this camera.
I mean, this dome right here has been dipped
by alligators, tiger sharks, crocodiles.
I've had everything on this.
- [Brian] That's amazing.
- But so I use this to get really cool underwater shots
of the guests with Casper.
- It's with Casper.
- Yeah, so he'll come over and he's doing his thing.
And again, here we are having a conversation,
he doesn't care about us.
- [Brian] Right.
- He's doing his own thing.
He's not interested.
Casper, come.
- [Brian] Look at him turning.
- [Chris] Immediately.
- [Brian] That's amazing.
And the thing that I find interesting Chris,
is that almost everyone I know that works with alligators
is real loud. You're very soft.
- [Chris] I like to make a point about that because,
- [Brian] Yeah.
- the whole Gator wrestling and this kind of thing,
like there's this very like machismo attitude about it,
where everybody's always like Casper, come! Urgh.
And it's so stupid. And like, they're like yelling at him
and all I gotta do is come and see me.
- [Brian] Look at that Sam.
- And he'll come right up and over. My good guy.
And there he is. Right. So you don't have to yell at them.
You know, you don't have to like speak to them aggressively
and be like, "come here" you know,
you just call him right over
and he'll come right over, you know.
- [Brian] Majestic animal I mean it's just amazing.
It's one thing to see alligators, you know,
but to be like kind of right in the water with them
like this is just shocking.
It'll never get old you. It can't get old for you, right?
- No, no, it's so cool.
And you know, like what makes this amazing too
is even though the net is there
and a lot of people like I want to do without the net.
Well, the net lets you get this close.
- [Brian] Yeah.
- [Chris] I mean, look, you're literally like inches away.
- [Brian] I can literally touch him with the camera.
I mean it's ridiculous how close he is.
And he seems very interested, right?
Is he always interested in guests as a friend?
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So he wants to come over.
He wants to see what's going on.
And then obviously I call him over
and I can direct him really well too.
He's really good with like directional
so I can make him turn this way or turn that way.
Come. Come.
So we can do a circle
and keep them going this way.
Come.
Casper. Come.
Come.
Bring right over.
Get him to stop.
Probably there's a leaf just chewing on,
he's always chewing on the leaves.
- [Brian] It's so cool to see you work with these animals.
I mean, it's really inspiring and I can only hope one day
to have this type of relationship with my gators,
'cause this is amazing.
- It's pretty cool, right.
And just be able to hang out with him like this
and he knows the drill, he knows the tour.
He knows what to do. He's done this a million times.
Like he knows exactly what his job is, you know?
And he comes over and I mean, look,
he's choosing to sit right here. I'm not holding him,
he's just floating.
- [Brian] He's just part of it and he's a good boy.
For people that don't think that these things are smart,
I tell you what, that's ridiculous.
- Yeah, yeah.
- 100 million years and they didn't get something right,
you know (indistinct)
- And like behavioral stuff that I know that like
you would appreciate that he does sometimes.
'Cause I'm always telling people like he's very well-trained
but he's not tame.
So like if I were to reach out my hand
and if I like slapped him in the face,
he'd bite my hand, you know,
And he's not gonna be like, oh, sorry bro.
Like he's probably gonna try to eat my hand, you know?
Or if I feed him the food and I don't get my hand
out of the way he bite my hand, right.
But I'm totally confident he won't attack me,
like in that instance, you know,
but he would bite me if I make him feel threatened
or if I had to involuntary feeding response,
like I accidentally create a feeding response.
But on the other side of what's so cool is
how much he trusts me where he'll come over
and I can't make this happen, sometimes he does it,
where he'll come over and bump into me
and we'll put his hands out and he'll put his hands
in my hands
- [Brian] Really?
- and then he'll put his weight down.
So like maybe he'll do this. We'll see if I take his hands.
Nope. Come here.
No. Oh man.
Yeah. He's not going to do it.
See, that's what I was trying to do.
But if I get his little hands, nope.
- The thing I always find interesting, whenever I watch you,
and I've watched you do this a thousand times,
it's just how he'll come up and just like
slowly open his mouth a little bit.
- Yeah.
- [Brian] What do you think he's doing there?
Oh he wants food. Yeah, yeah.
He's waiting for food. Just like right there.
Like for a second he was like, oh maybe there's food there.
'Cause of the blind spot in the front.
So when he first bumped into me, I have to be careful again,
like in that instance,
like you do have to be very careful because
right when he bumps up in the front,
they can't see right there.
So I always have to be ready. Like, you know,
he thought for a minute that might be food.
And if I can reach him, he sits,
you gonna sit?
Can you do it?
Maybe, maybe not, now he's going to move.
I wish I could make it happen, you know, but like,
- [Brian] It's his choice.
- Yeah. But I mean I've had him do it a couple times
where he fully relaxes and like that's so cool.
And he's the only alligator I've ever had do that too.
Like I've got a lot of trained alligators that trust me
and I can work with them in ways that you know,
like nobody else does, but that is very unique.
You know?
- [Brian] That's amazing.
(upbeat funk music)
- [Brian] So tell me a little bit about the kind of
mission that you guys do down here.
- We are South Florida's largest nonprofit
alligator rescue, as well as rescuing
all sorts of different types of animals.
We take in animals that people don't want any more,
whether it's a primate, whether it's a tegu,
whether it's a tiger.
- [Brian] Wow.
- [Woman] Yep. We also rehabilitate and release
whatever we can.
So let's say an opossum comes in that's injured
or a coyote or a bobcat, we will rehab it
and release it back into the wild.
- You guys are doing kind of a lot of expanding,
- Yes.
- [Brian] you wanted to say add maybe like a hospital unit.
- Yes. We are building a brand new gift shop.
We are building a brand new hospital ground up.
So it's going to have portable x-ray machines
where we can take the x-ray machines out on calls.
It's going to have a surgical area too,
so any of the animals, whether it's our animals
that are here permanently or rehab animals
can have surgery or need surgery.
Our vets can come up and do it in-house so that way
we don't have to put them through the stress
of being moved out.
- [Brian] That's so awesome.
And remember, because they're a 501C3 that's not for profit.
That means that, you know, they're doing this
out of the kindness of their heart.
So, you know, come down support if you're ever down here.
I'm going to put all the links in the description,
the address, everything,
you gotta visit this place is amazing.
And I'm telling you what,
if you get in the water with Casper, yeah.
That's a must.
I mean, the place is amazing besides,
but doing that one is absolutely the coolest thing
you'll ever do. So show these guys some love, please.
- I'm just like kind of push her at the neck
and try to just get her to back up. She knows what to do.
She understands it, but we're not going to hit her.
We're not going to strike her.
Like I like to make that very clear. You know,
I have a stick and people always think
I use it to beat them. We never hit them.
It's just to try to push her and get her to go back,
which she does understand pretty well.
(upbeat funk music)
- It's interesting because Cuban crocodiles are typically
really willing to come charging forward.
But in this case, the male actually
seems to be a little stubborn and that happens, you know,
sometimes maybe he's just feeling like he doesn't want food
or whatever the case is still really cool
to see these amazing animals up close and personal.
Even if he doesn't want to cooperate
and actually come up to us still an amazing animal.
(woman laughing)
- [Woman] Hello.
(group chatting)
- I show the camera.
That was a big two. Huh?
- [Brian] Definitely super cool
that we actually had a bunch of alligator teeth,
but now we have a Cuban crocodile tooth too.
It's just cool to see the difference
between the two of them.
And again, they'll shed those teeth.
It's just awesome to have them
definitely got to make a necklace.
All right. So the fun begins here.
We actually have a bunch of rescue Gators right here
and basically Chris, right?
You have to get these out
because he's a nuisance alligators, right?
- Right. Yeah.
So these are all rescue nuisance alligators
that are caught out of backyard, swimming pools,
things like that that are normally killed.
They're usually shot and killed.
- [Brian] Right.
- 'Cause they only two options for a nuisance alligator
over four feet is life in captivity or shot and killed.
They don't relocate over four feet.
So we try to get these guys a home
instead of having them destroyed.
- [Brian] Exactly.
And so Chris is basically doing a lot of training,
but there's one alligator in particular
that I've never seen anything like it before.
And its name is...
- Octa Gator.
- [Brian] Octa Gator. Let's check it out.
- [Chris] Octa. This is Flocko coming over, actually.
He's a big blind Gator.
- [Brian] And what you might be noticing
is that these alligators actually know their names.
It's not just a vocal cue.
They actually know their particular names,
- [Chris] Yeah.
- [Brian] which I think is amazing, right.
- The specific words. Like we can sit here
and have a conversation. They don't really care.
Blah blah, blah, blah.
So if you look at him right here, dah, dah, dah,
I'm talking, I'm talking.
Flocko. So, then he starts moving up, right.
- [Brian] That's awesome.
- So he knows his specific name.
But he's completely blind, this guy is.
- [Brian] Oh, okay.
- [Chris] Yeah. So he has no idea what's going on usually.
- [Brian] He's just looking for food.
He's like, where's the food at? I know I got called.
- I'll give him a little piece.
- Exactly. Give him that treat.
That's just to reinforce again, you know,
when he's called over, he's doing his job.
Now you reward them and that's going to keep him going.
But what do we got.
- [Chris] We go Octa over here, Octa.
- [Brian] Look at all the teeth.
Again, you know, alligators was shed those teeth out, right.
How many teeth in their lifetime about do they go through?
- So it depends how long they live obviously.
- Sure.
- You know, so, each two, so an alligator has 80 teeth,
each tooth last about two years if it's not knocked out.
So it'll fall on its own about every two years.
- [Brian] Okay awesome.
- So 80 teeth, two years.
- [Brian] Times two years.
- Yeah. And then let's say we have an 80 year old alligator.
- [Brian] That's a lot teeth.
- [Chris] Yeah. Whatever the math on that is.
- [Brian] Yeah, you guys comment down below about that.
I don't know what that is, but regardless,
so obviously Octa is really an incredible animal
because it's a mutation that actually eight--
- Polydactyly.
- [Brian] Polydactyly. Is that what it's called?
- Yes. Yeah. So it's called polydactyly.
So like there's Hemingway's cats is a famous example
or there's a Russian czar family
that also have polydactyly as well.
- [Brian] Wow. That's amazing.
So it's probably a recessive mutation as well, right?
- Yes, yes, correct.
- [Brian] Exactly. So if it ever breeds,
its babies are going to be heterozygous. Four,
eight little toes and then of course you breed those back,
you get eight toes. Not that you'd want to do it.
That is one of the freakiest alligators I've ever seen.
As if Chris isn't good enough on his own,
of course he's got Gabby, which makes him much even cooler.
There's no doubt about it.
Gabby, I've been following you for a long time.
You're amazing. So tell me, how did you get going
with this whole thing?
- Well, I mean I've been worked with animals
basically my whole life,
since I was 15.
Then when I moved to Florida,
I just fell in love with alligators.
I got really lucky and now alligators are like
my entire life. Yeah.
- Oh my gosh. And again,
I'm sure you guys have seen some videos with Gabby.
I think the one that like going crazy viral that I was like,
oh my God, that's amazing,
is when you did the whole broom on the back
and it's kind of, tell me about it,
does the alligator like it, or is it simulate?
- I was doing alligator shows at the time.
So I would scrub the algae off their backs
because they would get like slippery and green.
So I would literally scrub them.
And I remember I posted the video and you messaged me,
you're like, let's make this go viral.
Let's blow this up.
And you shared it and it just took off from there.
- Yeah. It was so incredible.
But you've done so many cool things since then.
And it's really inspiring. And you know, again,
Chris and you are amazing people
and the fact that, you know,
they spend their whole life doing this.
So that's why it's important for me
to have you guys show them some support
because they they're really wildlife warriors. It's amazing.
Is there something that you're like super excited about?
I mean, I know you work with alligators,
you do alligator shows, but I mean,
is it just crocodilians or is it everything?
- It's everything. I mean, we work with everything.
We rescue everything.
Anything from like a pig that needs a home,
dumped on the side of the road to like a 12 foot alligator
in a ditch on the side of the road.
Like we will do our best to to help any kind of animal.
- I mean, that is just so bad ass.
I mean, I can't take it and it's so cool to hang out.
Again, great people. So definitely,
links in the description. Go show them love.
And if you don't tell them that I sent you,
I'll be mad at you. So please Gabby, keep being cool,
all right.
- Thank you so much Brian.
- [Brian] All right, thanks.
- [Chris] Now everybody's excited.
- [Brian] So Chris, give me a little rundown
about like your philosophy when it comes to
working with and training these alligators
and crocodilians in general, you know what I mean?
It's basically, you know, it's about rewarding them
with food. These aren't gonna, you know,
you can have a relationship, they know their names,
but they're not going to protect you like a puppy dog.
- Right? So we try to keep a positive interaction where,
you know, I'm giving them food.
We don't want to have it be negative.
You know, I do block them with a stick,
but you never hit them with a stick.
You don't want them to be afraid of you.
So it's really, oh, here's Leo.
Leo is pretty good. Leo.
There you go.
- [Brian] Ooh. That's a good one.
- That was a good pop right there.
(alligator growling)
- Good boy.
Yeah.
- [Brian] Got to say, bud.
- Yeah. So I've worked with Leo for a long time as well.
- [Brian] How long is it that you would go
from say have a rescue alligator, you know,
you name it now you start working with it.
How long does it take before you can get to Leo
where he's going to come up for his name?
- Totally depends on the individual.
I've had some within about a week or two
and I've had some six months later,
they're still full on trying to kill you.
So before I got distracted about him,
what I was saying is that balancing act
is really getting them to understand first off,
when we first get them from the wild
that you're not a threat, you're not going to hurt them.
So first off he's going to be very defensive.
He's going to try to kill you
because he thinks you're trying to kill him. You know?
So he's gonna be very defensive at first.
And then once he realizes I'm not a threat,
then he's going to think of your food.
And then he's going to try to eat you, okay.
What I tell people is, you know, when they go to attack,
no animal just attacks. If they're trying to bite,
there's a motivation behind the bite
and you have to understand why is it trying to bite you?
And then you can work around to try to negate that reasoning
for trying to bite you.
So at first he's trying to bite you because he's afraid.
Okay, get rid of the fear.
Well now he's going to bite you
because he thinks he can eat you now.
So now we have to get to understand that you're not food.
You're not a part of his diet or anything like that.
Just putting a piece of wood in their mouth
because you know, they're smart, you know?
And so when they feel that they're like,
this is not what I want to eat and this, you know,
like you don't have to hit him or strike them.
This just annoys him enough. And you see right there,
gets him to back up. You never fully trust them.
Like even that right there,
like he's not trying hard to bite me,
but that she's trying to test his boundaries.
He's just trying to see like, can I eat them?
I don't know. So like, I always try to be ready for that,
you know, and be aware.
Good boy.
- Had an absolutely great time. Thank you Gabby.
Thank you, Chris.
This was absolutely amazing. Again, link in the description.
Go show them some love on all their social media.
Tell them I sent you.
I'll be mad at you if you don't show these guys love.
If you enjoyed this video,
do me a favor right over here is a playlist.
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It would mean the world to me.
Have an absolutely wonderful day reptile army.
Remember be kind to someone, you promise.
I'll see in the next one.