- Where are we now?
- Is that the alligators?
- They're looking forward to seeing you.
- I thought that was like a power hose.
- Look at them, look at them, dripping.
- They're splashing.
(laughs)
Oh well, okay I'm definitely more scared.
(cajun music)
- On the last day,
I knew that we were going on like a longer drive.
- [Devin] I don't think you have to go an hour away
to go to a weird sex party.
- No, you do, you do.
- I think we're going to the swamp.
- [Jen] We ended up driving like outside of the city.
We had to cross over this bridge.
- [Devin] Land ho.
- [Devin] I'm a land ho.
- And eventually we go on this really long road
and I saw a sign that said gators ahead?
- [Devin] Alligator tours?
- [Kristin] Are we going on an alligator tour?
(laughs)
- In my head, like kinda joking,
I was like that's so cool gators,
we're not doing that, that'd be crazy.
- Is it alligator tour?
- [Devin] No.
- Horse girls?
- [Devin] Yes.
- [Kristin] Oh God, Devin, I'm getting very nervous.
- And then we like turned.
- [Kristin] We are going on a gator car.
I knew it.
- [Kristin] What!
- We're gonna go work with some alligators.
- [Kristin] What?
- We're gonna pick them up
and learn how to open their mouths and stuff.
- What?
Wait.
(dramatic music)
- I'm so scared of alligators.
- We're here, we are definitely right here.
- Hi. - Where's here?
- Where the (bleep) are we?
- We know there's gators.
- Right there.
- That's not funny.
- We are at The Instigator Ranch
and we're gonna learn about
Louisiana's biggest keystone predator, the alligator.
(cajun music)
- Hi John.
- Hi, how are y'all doing today?
- Nice to meet you.
- [Jen] The owner and basically one of our guides
of Instagators is dude named John.
- Welcome to Instagator Ranch.
- Instantly I felt a lot more comfortable
because he was just like the nicest dude.
- So, how long have you had the ranch, John?
- I started in 1989.
We've been raising alligators ever since.
We go out in the marsh and harvest the eggs,
incubate them, hatch them, raise them to a size
where we can return some back to the marsh.
We enjoy what we do.
We also do tours here so people can learn
just how Louisiana has become
the best in the world at protecting crocodilians.
- You could tell he was super knowledgeable
about everything he was doing
and also you could tell he was really proud of his ranch,
the way that his family all works there.
- So are ya'll ready to learn some alligator facts?
- Yes.
- I'm ready to learn facts,
nervous about the interactive portion.
(everyone laughs)
- Yes.
- The first thing you see on the tour of this ranch,
is the tank that's like physically designed
to house all the baby gators.
- [Ladies] Wow!
- [John] And these are our baby alligators.
- Hi babes.
Oh hello.
- [John] These alligators were all born
during the month of August.
- [Jen] They're just like these kinda like weird long fish
animal thingies that just kinda like bop around.
- It's been such a successful program
that the population of alligators
has grown from about 600 to 800,000 in 1985
to today, we have over three and a half million alligators
in the state of Louisiana.
- So, surprisingly, alligators necks
are tougher than their torsos.
So right about the middle of the tail
is where you want to grab first
and then you're just gonna put a little loop
around their neck kinda, just a little collar for them.
- [Jen] Their faces are still kinda ugly,
but because their so small they were actually really cute.
- I like this one.
Look at his little paw.
- Do they like to cuddle?
Are they cuddlers?
- I don't know that I would use that exact term,
but in some form or fashion the answer is yes.
- So cute.
- You did it.
- Wow, hey buddy, look at you.
- Hi baby. - Hi.
- You got tiny eyes and an even tinier brain apparently.
- They're basically little puppies.
They're little water puppies.
- Water puppies.
- Alright buddy, yeah I know, I'm sorry.
- Wait so you just grab it like that?
- [Jen] Yeah and then--
- And then you just grab it,
oh no, he doesn't like that.
Okay you're right, I should be firmer with you.
I'm not a good parent right now.
- [Devin] Why are your arms crossed like that?
- I don't know.
- I don't like this positioning.
- [Alex] He might swim away if I let him go.
- This guy's not calm.
Alright I got him now.
- You got him?
- Yeah.
- Well I can check that one off the bucket list.
(girls laughing)
We fondled some dangerous predators.
- [Kristin] Fondled.
- [Devin] Yeah fondled.
- I don't know if fondled's the word.
All of the other gators are held in these barns.
They have to keep the humidity really high.
The smell was pretty intense.
It is like a mix of wet fishy animal smell
and then just like the heaviness of all that humidity,
it kinda feels like you're eating it.
John mentioned that they power wash all of those pens
so it's a clean facility.
It's just that animals are stanky.
- So what we're gonna do is let ya'll feed the alligators
and once we've made them good and happy,
we're gonna hop into a pen and catch an alligator
and then let one of you all tape the alligators mouth shut.
- [Devin] Yay, who wants to do that?
Let's rock, paper, scissors.
- You know what?
I will do that.
- Yeah?
- Actually why did I agree to that?
(laughs)
- And they're actually looking for you to feed them
so we're gonna hand you some food.
- [Devin] Do they have a sweet tooth?
- [John] No but they do come from the marsh
and this will make them mellow.
- [Devin] Oh.
- [Freddie] None of them have eaten one.
- [John] As you can see they're quite lazy animals.
They'll get it if they can
and they won't if it's too much trouble.
- There you go buddy.
You got one.
John explained that sometimes the alligators
do get a little bit irritated
if people are around them.
- [John] That's it and as soon as they bite
they're not that gentle they're gonna crush whatever--
- [Jen] Oh okay.
That one's getting feisty.
John reassured us that like as long as you're behind
the fence and you're not leaning over
or jumping in you're completely safe.
- John, have you ever been bit by an alligator before?
- I've been bitten by three foot, four foot,
five, six, and a seven foot alligator.
- You've been bitten by a seven foot alligator?
- I have.
We don't use snares and ropes and things like that
because that does damage to the skin.
- Do you wear special suits?
How do you protect your--
- A diaper.
(laughing)
- True, true, true, true, true.
- One of the alligators did get
pretty annoyed that we were there.
- Well alligators don't have lips
so they don't concern themselves
with whether mouth... (alligators hissing)
We're starting to irritate them a little bit
- Emanate this like really like growly like hissy sound.
- [John] We might wanna step away.
- [Devin] Okay, lets.
I'm trying.
- It was a little bit frightening.
Just because you could tell this is such a powerful animal.
Yeah when it hissed at us I was like,
listen, if this alligator jumps out of this pen,
we're not equipped to fight it.
- You were about to run me over.
- I literally was like why is no one moving?
I'm just trying to get out of the way.
- I know it may not have sounded like it at the time
but I wasn't concerned for y'alls safety.
I just don't think that we should stand there
and irritate him to the point where he might decide
to have a fight with one of his friends.
- Okay, so where to next?
Let's go catch an alligator.
We gotta tape the mouth shut.
- Wait that's what we're doing?
We're doing that now?
- [Alex] I'll try to find a nice alligator for ya.
- Yeah find her only the nicest.
- Only the nice ones.
They actually have a flap in the back
of their throat called a palatal valve.
There it goes.
See that little flap back there
is what prevents water from going into their lungs.
- [Kristin] Thank you.
- You're gonna need tape on top of tape
right in front of my thumbs.
- Okay right in front of your thumbs?
- You don't want to cover up his nostrils,
just right in front of my thumbs
and you're gonna go about four times around.
- Can you cut the tape?
- I can rip it off for ya.
- Oh you just rip it?
- Yeah I can get that for ya.
- That wasn't scary.
- Not too bad.
- Yeah!
- This is the size that we release.
Of course I haven't measured him yet
but he's about four feet long.
- So why do they like to put their nose against surfaces?
- Whenever their young they tend
to kinda like to huddle together.
All these alligators in here are roughly a year
and a half old so they're still pretty young.
Alligators do live basically as long as we do,
70 years is kind of an average life span.
- Oh I didn't know that, wow.
- So all of our mating actually takes place in the wild.
All of our eggs come to us that we collect from the wild,
we take mamas eggs because only about 6% naturally survive.
- So by taking the eggs from the wild,
you're able to ensure that like a higher percentage
of those alligators survive.
- Exactly.
That's the exact reason that we exist,
Because they did a lot of studies early on
and found that they really weren't surviving
due to predators, due to flooding.
So ever since this program started in the eighties,
we've always released more than what naturally survives
so the population has always been increasing.
- He's so calm right now.
- He's so calm.
- I told you I'd catch you a nice one.
- I appreciate that.
That was shockingly easy.
I literally was like I'm gonna have to get in the pool.
I'm gonna wrestle an alligator.
That's gonna be my day.
- [Chantel] Can we name him Nelson?
Bye Nelson.
- He goes bye.
- I started this day very scared,
a little not happy.
Are you (bleep) kidding me Devin?
- Kill some beasts.
- But I ended it with taping an alligators mouth
and like touching his tummy.
- I'm so proud of you.
- It was cool.
- I went for it, okay?
I did the thing that no one else wanted to do.
I learned a lot.
- [Devin] They're like really beautiful animals.
They're actually like very tame.
I'm so impressed with everyone at Instagator.
Not only do they you know raise these alligators,
they know so much about them.
- [Kristin] They deeply care about these animals.
- [Jen] It was interesting because John and Alex,
this is also your home, you live here,
this is like where you raise your family,
so it was kinda cool
because not only did we get to meet up with alligators
but I sorta felt like this was the most we've gotten to know
like people that lived here.
Which was really cool.
- I'm not gonna lie,
I'm sure it was pretty obvious when we got there
but I was really nervous about meeting alligators.
- [Kristin] Were you?
- I feel like with Devin,
it's never just oh we're gonna go look at the alligators.
There's always another piece to it.
That's a little bit of a plot twist.
So, but it was really cool,
we got to, I loved holding the little babies.
They were so sweet and so cute.
I loved them.
- So we went to an alligator ranch.
I honestly never thought that would happen
but if you're in Louisiana and New Orleans specifically,
I recommend Instagator.
It's pretty cool.
I touched a baby gator.
Not many people can say that.
(upbeat music)