Local Celebrity Podcast - Alligator Robb - From Wildlife Encounters to Heart Surgery: One Man's Tale
December 4, 2023 • 53 mins
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to come face-to-face with a wild alligator? Or been curious about the world of critters that slither and scuttle across the Space Coast? Get ready for a wild ride, as we venture into the fascinating world of alligator catching with our guest, Frank Robb aka Alligator Robb. Rob transports us to Chicago, where he tangled with the notorious alligator, Chance the Snapper. Frank also shares his heartwarming rescue stories and emphasizes the importance of public education about these misunderstood creatures.
What if falling in love with an alligator could save your life? Frank Robb shares his remarkable journey from professional alligator catcher to heart surgery survivor. Uncover how his connection with these formidable creatures led to his life-saving medical treatment. Then, we shift gears to explore Florida's diverse snake population, dispelling myths and misunderstandings about the common red rat snake, the arboreal yellow rat snake, and the swift black racer. A special mention goes out to the glass lizard, a 'snake' with unique lizard-like qualities!
Finally, join us in a crucial conversation on environmental issues and the imperative role of unity in tackling these global problems. Frank's recent heart surgery gives him a unique perspective on life, and he shares his thoughts on the potential of shaving his iconic beard off ! We also peek into the world of podcasting and discuss the significant role of wildlife conservation and environmental education. So, tune in and prepare to have your views on alligators, snakes, and the environment transformed!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This podcast is brought to you by Place Pros,
Commercial and Investment RealEstate, and NikoTour Boutique,
your one-stop shop foreverything cool.
Thank you so much for beinghere today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yes, ma'am, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So let me just get into your story.
There was an alligator namedChance the Snapper in Chicago
and it was evading even theirlocal guy who was named
alligator Bob, and youralligator Rob.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Ma'am, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, and he couldn't catch him, so then they
contacted you.
How did they know to contactyou?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
They had reached out to the state of Florida, the
mayor's office up there inChicago, animal Care and Control
.
They had reached out to a bunchof different local zoos, the St
Augustine Alligator Farm farm,and everybody said, well, you
want the guy who's the longesttenured guy, who's been doing
that work forever.
Here's the guy.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Here's the guy.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Which is very humbling, very, very humbling.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, so you've been catching gators all your life.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
This is year 28 doing it professionally.
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
But you grew up in a family that had that background.
Like your uncle, he was like alegend.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I hear yes, ma'am, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Bill.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Rob Gator, bill.
Yep, he did the work for about20 years himself, for then Game
and Fish, and then, when itturned to Fish and Wildlife,
yeah, did the nuisance alligatorwork for a very long time as
well?
Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Nuisance, alligator work, that's what it's called.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, and then.
So you got called up to Chicago, and then your whole world
changed.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, I was already very well known and blessed to
be very well known for my workand it's just, it's different.
I didn't know what to expectgoing up there.
I got a call randomly onemorning saying, hey, we need
some help in Chicago with thisgator.
Again, I've been following thestory.
Oh you had, and it neverexpected you to phone call about
(01:58):
it.
I think we had joked about you.
Know it'd be interesting ifthey called you.
What would you do then?
Like, I guess I go to Chicagoand catch an alligator, I guess
Went up there, remember arrivingon the scene to this place and
there's a mariachi band playing,there's a couple dozen news
crews, there's people, there'sfood trucks, there's people
selling t-shirts and buttons,and I mean thousands of people
(02:20):
wrapped around this lagoon onthe southwest side of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Because they were like 10 days in to try to catch
him.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, and they were.
There's this misconceptionpeople have that.
Well, they were all freakingout and scared.
No, they were legitimatelyexcited to see something
different in the city of Chicago.
It was entertainment, you know.
They were really into it.
Everybody was there waiting tosee it like a glimpse of him,
you know, and I just nobody knewwho I was at that point.
So I just kind of just walkedaround asking questions and
(02:48):
looking to see what was going onand you'd hear people like look
, there he is.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
But you knew right away to like clear them out.
You knew that if you had ever achance to catch him, this is
not the way to do it.
All the pomp and circumstance.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, there had been so much activity there and he
had been chased around by otherpeople that were looking for him
that the best thing you can doin a situation with an animal is
just get out of dodge, justback off, let things chill out.
They flipped the lights off inthe park and I went to work and
I was able to get it worked out.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And the reason he was there was probably like a pet
that had gone awry.
Maybe I read something about.
Maybe it was like a drugdealer's pet.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
There's yeah, it's one of the two.
Believe it or not, they'recoming up there in drug raids.
The law enforcement comes upwith one drug raids quite a bit.
It was one of the two things,but it was 100% a captive animal
.
You can see the way his nosewas bent was from being in
captivity and something toosmall for the area.
He was too big for the area hewas in and it kind of bent his
nose back.
So yeah, so rough life ofanimals.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So you cleared the whole place out and you gave him
some time to calm down andemerge.
But it was your.
You speak the language.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, one of the many studies we've done a long time
through through Ears.
My Non-Profit is vocalizationstudies, so we will take
everything.
There's 28 different species ofcrocodilians.
We'll take hatchlings,juveniles and adults and record
the sounds they make, becausewhen you travel to other
countries to work with thoseanimals, it helps to be able to
say hey, buddy, here I am, comeon, let's get some blood from
(04:19):
you, come here, let's take asample.
And they'll belly up at the barpretty much.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
They will.
So how do you say hi to analligator?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Something along those lines, and there's also mating
calls that are more like realdeep, real deep bellows.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Bellows yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
It's actually a B flat, believe it or not.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
We've learned it's a B flat.
And then I also read that theyhad different dialects.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
They do, depending on what part of the country
they're in.
We'll do work in North Carolinacatching gators up there and
you can tell they hear theFlorida man show up and start
speaking alligator to him.
They all kind of go what in theworld is going on.
This is either the mostentertaining thing we've ever
heard in our entire lives orthis guy's insane.
We don't know which one.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That is hilarious.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
We're going to do a combination of them both.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Oh my God, that's fascinating.
So you were able to call himout.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yes, yeah, called him out.
I catch probably 99% of theanimals that we do work with via
fishing rod, so he just likefoul hook and a fish.
You just snag him, bring him in.
We put a catch pole on him,tied him up and took him
straight over to Chicago AnimalCare and Control from there.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Wow, and he was like a what five foot.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yes, ma'am, five foot three Wow.
Yeah, he's a big old boy thesedays.
I'll actually be up thereFriday to see him in.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
St Augustine.
He's in St Augustine now,living the life.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yep, living the rock star life, the rock star
alligator life.
Nobody even knew that was athing until then.
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
But you too.
So after this happened, youwent on this like whirlwind of
celebrity.
Tell us you met the mayor.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, they kind of sort of gave me the key to the
city.
Yeah, it was a blessing.
It was neat to meet her andchat with her.
It's been one thing after theother since that whole story.
You know it's hard to even putit into words.
What a sincere blessing it'sbeen.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
You met all the big people in Chicago.
You went to Wrigley Field, youthrew out the first pitch and
now your friends with all ofthem.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yep, yep, good peoples you met.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Jerry Springer.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Which I had no idea who that was.
But yeah, that's a wholedifferent story too.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah that's so great.
Who else?
What else have you sort of comeinto?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Don't events up there with everybody you can think of
the Murray family.
Don't events up there withDolores Jordan, michael Jordan's
mom.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
The Murray family being Bill Murray's family.
Yes ma'am, and what are theyinto?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
They're huge supporters of first responders.
They have a nonprofit they runwhere they support basically
first responders and militaryaround the world, and that's
them and a lady named BetsyShepard that take care of all
that.
And they bring in lawenforcement officers and
military from around the country, around the world, that have
had instances whether that be aschool shooting, a building
(07:13):
collapse, whatever might begoing on to kind of give them a
couple days to take their mindoff all that stuff.
It's a golf tournament they doevery year.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
That's really nice.
It's called Canal Shores.
So you're involved and you'reconnected now and you even wrote
a book, Our American Alligator.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, that's kind of my life's work all in one place.
I'm going to put all of ourresearch up into that point that
we've done in one area.
So when people have alligatorrelated questions they can just
go there and they can find itall Anatomy, physiology, myths,
you name it.
It's all in there with picturesfrom around Brevard County that
have alligators in weird spotsthat we've worked with forever.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's so cool and because alligators have been
around like since the dinosaurs,am I right?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, you know what happened to the dinosaurs, don't
you?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
They got eaten by alligators?
They sure did.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
You went with that very well.
You rolled right into that.
That was like killed my jokeline.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
But yeah, that was perfect.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Sorry.
No, that was good, that was.
You're the first one to everlike.
Just put it right out there.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Okay, knew my punchline before I ever got
there.
That was good stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Sorry about that, but you've also like done
children's books, like you'rereally taking the celebrity to
great places.
You also have your own podcastand you invite everybody on that
has something to say.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, it's a lot like what you guys are doing.
We're just trying to be ablessing to people, not only in
the wildlife world, but peoplethat are local here, that are
that need that five minutes totalk about what they're doing
and discuss it, and everybodyhas such a unique journey and a
story, and if you can find a wayto highlight that and what's
going on, then I feel likeyou're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Well, yeah, you have to have those conversations.
So you also made a foundationthe environmental education,
awareness, research, support andservices.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yes, ears, yes, oh, we jokingly say ears.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
It's double E a R, double S.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Talk to me about that .
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So that was something I put together right before
everything in Chicago happenedand it was again just right
place, right time Again.
As a person of faith, I believethat's the good Lord kind of
putting things together the waythey're supposed to be.
And we were put together toprovide educational programs,
which we've been doing forever.
I think we did 100 educationalprograms last year from
everybody, from elementaryschools, every library in the
(09:30):
county.
We hit.
We covered DoD you name thegroups, we go there.
We do safety programs for them.
Blue Origin you name them, wego there, talk to them about the
animals that are there.
What to be worried about, whatnot to be worried about?
We travel internationally to doand work.
We just got back from Belize.
What three weeks ago?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I saw that you helped make a pen for the alligators
that they catch.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, yeah, they needed a pen for their
crocodiles, so we made a newsetup for them, and then we went
out and caught some crocsaround Belize City down there.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Alligators, crocodiles?
I know that the difference isin their snout, but you always
you keep referencing them as allcrocodiles.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
They're crocodilians, yeah, they're all that fits
alligator, crocodile, kamen.
And then there's always oneoddball group with scientists
always have what you're calledgaryls.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Garyls, what are those?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Those are the fish eating crocodiles in India.
They have the real long nose.
The ball in the end.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Oh wow, but you don't stop at crocodilians.
I have seen you, you wereholding snakes and possums.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
We do a lot of amazing work Through ears,
beyond the educational outreach,we do Biodiversity research
here across Brevard County andthe Air Force Base.
Now, where we go out of theseproperties, we set a raise,
we'll put out carpets, we'll putout Coverboards, whatever we
can do to kind of document theAnimals and species that are
(10:57):
there, that are traveling backand forth with the habitat types
, mm-hmm.
That helps them update theirland management plans, helps
them get more grant funding forwhat they're doing, and it's
just it's.
It's vitally important to knowwhat's there so you can know how
to take care of what's there.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, I hear that Florida has like the most
Alligators anywhere.
Is that right or like Louisiana?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
has four times as many as we do.
Four times.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Okay, and then we're, we're we have a solid million.
Yeah, we have a solid millionand and right around the place
where you grew up in Titusville.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Right there's a poor st John.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, poor st John.
There's a lake there that has alot.
So how are you educating peopleand like, what do you?
What's the goal?
Is it to to keep them like inline, or to you're catching them
a lot?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, so with crocodilians in general, one of
the things we try to preach isNot be complacent, you know
under your surroundings, don'tbe complacent.
This is a story we kind ofpreach globally, right?
So I'm also part of a groupcalled the crocodile specialist
group and I sit on a humancrocodile conflict board for
them.
So we try to preach being awareof your surroundings, which I
(12:05):
mean everybody should be doingall the time anyhow.
Right, but be aware yoursurroundings, understand there's
better things to worry about,and I jokingly say there's.
You know, worry about taxes orterrorism.
You know, worry about somethinglike that, because an alligator
is nothing.
It's gonna sneak up and killyou.
It's not the way it works.
The instances where locallyhere, people are getting bitten
or hurt anywhere around thestate, it's People that are
(12:28):
taking things for granted, ifyou're, if you're feeding an
animal and you expect somethingbad not to happen to you.
You kind of being silly right.
I mean especially a wild animal, and beyond that, if you're
feeding that animal, you'resetting the next person up for
failure.
It might not be you.
You're setting the next personup for failure.
And if you're going out andlet's say, a wildlife area, a
(12:48):
wild area in the middle of thenight and going for a swim, and
you get bit by an alligator,imagine that well, maybe make
better choices.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
That happened in Disney World, or is it land or
world?
Here it's land.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, that was a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Tell me how that was different, because I started
looking into that and they knewthey had a problem.
You know they were.
They took like four alligatorsout Right before that happened
and four more after it happened.
I guess there might have beensigns there.
The people in that case didn'tpress charges or anything.
What happened there?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So there's sometimes where you understand when
something like that happens,it's a terrible day for the
person, it's a terrible day forthe animal.
They both made mistakes thatthey're not going to probably
ever get over.
If the if the person livesthrough it, the animals not
going to live through it, youknow it's gonna.
It's gonna be bad on both ends.
And once you understand thatand you kind of, each one of
(13:44):
them has it their own dynamic toit.
Each conflict like that has itsown dynamic.
That was people that theyweren't from here, they didn't
know.
It's hard to educate somebodyor blame somebody from something
that they have no knowledge of.
That was just a terriblesituation that happened.
That really I don't thinkanybody could have controlled
differently.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
No, you don't think so.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I mean taking all the alligators.
Have an area is not the answer.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
There's a.
There's a fine line there.
You will meet communities, youknow, because we'll go to
communities like we were in thegreat outdoors after the guy
lost his leg.
They're in the great outdoorsand had that conversation for a
thousand of their homeownersthere and in the area.
It's something you have toApproach very delicately and let
people know.
Look, there's there's no rightanswer here as far as Every
(14:30):
alligators should be kept, keptsafe all the time, and every
alligators should be taken out.
It's somewhere in between.
More on the animals all stayingthere.
It just needs to be moreawareness and Education given on
what is what is a concern.
Is what is not a concern?
Right and that's where you youapproach the, the fine line of
everybody having their own ideaof it, but there's still a right
(14:51):
and a wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Okay, so it's it's again.
It's different with them.
We just have to do it wiselyand they're a keystone species.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
They're there for a reason they're they're a very
important animal to have in thelocal ecosystem.
You have to have them there.
Without them being there,everything starts to fall apart.
So I mean they're providingfood for other animals, they're
providing homes for otheranimals.
They keep everything in abalance.
Okay, they're apex.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Predators tend to do that which an alligator is okay,
but it sometimes it just getsout of hand, and that's when you
get called in that's well,that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I haven't done that work in a while, but that's
usually when that happens.
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Wow.
And so now you're justeducating people and how to be
more aware and Yep, which is anon-stop.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I mean, it's what we're, it's what you guys are
doing right now.
It's what we should all befinding ways to do with.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Whatever we're doing, education should be a main
mindset in Whatever's going onwith anybody the one thing that
I learned that now you Clear itup for me because you know they
say if you, if you run into analligator, you have to run
zigzag.
But now it's like I hear thatthat's not not accurate
information.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
You should just bolt well, first thing, an alligator
is never gonna chase you.
So you don't have to worryabout that in the first place.
Interactions like that aregonna happen within five to
eight feet of the water.
If an animal is coming up toyou, that's an animal that's
probably been fed or you knowit's.
You're gonna be able to see andunderstand things like that.
If you're out of the waterEnough to go Okay, something's
(16:17):
wrong.
It's probably time to back up.
Yeah just make yourself big.
Back away, things will be good.
Okay, and there's always thismisconception too about mating
season or nesting season, whichI like to say it's actually
called Mm-hmm.
There's only about 10% offemales that'll Legitimately
protect a nest.
It's very rare.
Most females if you come acrosstheir nest, they're gonna see
you.
They're gonna be like any otheralligator.
(16:37):
They're gonna bail out, neverwant to see you again.
They're not gonna hang around totalk about it.
You will meet again.
Probably one in ten that willturn around and hiss at you or
jog toward you.
All you gotta do is just backup and you're good to go.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, and I heard the hiss is what you should watch
out for, not necessarily thatbellow or the you know, the
stuff.
So you see in cartoons it'swhen they start.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Hissing, is when they're Upset they're all
individuals, just like we are.
There's some that are Not sosmart, just like people.
There's some that are super,like super Einstein's geniuses,
and there's some that are verytemperamental and there's some
that are just the most laid-backcritter in the entire world.
There's they mean, every sideof the spectrum.
They all hit it.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Wow, and you brought one here today.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yes, ma'am, yeah, it's hard to be alligator Robin.
I have an alligator with you.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
It's a hard mix.
Sure, yeah, let's take a lookat him.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
So this is Greg.
Greg, okay, he's very sensitiveabout his name.
This is Greg, with three G's.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Three G's at the top or three G's at the end.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And Is Greg a genius or is he?
Oh my god, he's a little guy.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yep, this is Greg.
He's one of our educationalanimals, so this is what he does
for a living.
You know, one of the manythings we try to talk about the
people, about these guys, is youknow that they grow very, very
slow.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
They grow very, very slow.
Yeah, sure you can hold him.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
So he doesn't pee on you.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
there you go, oh you want to put put fingers here.
So he's an alligator yes, ma'amAmerican alligator, just don't
squeeze him too hard.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I don't want to.
Oh my gosh, he looks like he'ssmiling.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
That's what beautiful thing about crocodilians
they're all.
They're all always smiling.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
So he's, what about two feet?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
He's not quite two feet not quite.
Yeah, he's a foot, maybe a footand a half and how old is he?
He's two Yep in the wild.
That'd be a be a three-year-oldprobably.
There he's, this is him doinghis work for a living, you know
so he gets it.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
He gets it pretty easy, he's just hanging out.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, this is what.
This is what he does.
You know, we get to talk abouthim and his osteoderms and his
eyes and the sensory organs theyhave around their mouth and how
they work and how they're built, and it just yeah, I see like a
slit between his eye or rightafter his eye.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
What is that?
Is that those are his ears?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yep, so they're actually flaps.
That's what this whole arearight here is behind his eye.
They're actually baffles.
They'll actually work likebutterfly wings.
They can move like butterflywings.
And then you know when you seehim blink there you can see his
nicotating membrane Come and,come forward and go back.
They got five fingers in theirfront hands with three claws and
four fingers in the back Handswith three claws, and right here
where your middle finger at, isactually half of his body.
(19:20):
That's their midpoint, righthere where your middle fingers
at.
So they're exactly half.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Half tail half body.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
If you look at, those little dots around his face.
Yeah, those are sensory organs.
We call them ISOs.
Each one of those little dotscan fill one drop in a thousand
gallons.
So imagine if he's out in apond somewhere and there's a
fish in distress or there's aturtle that's hurt or somebody's
feeding the animals.
They can fill that beunderwater, come right to it,
pick it up, grab stuff and moveon from it, never have to even
(19:47):
surface.
Interesting thing alligatorsand Cayman have those around
their mouth.
Crocodiles have those littledots on every scale across their
entire body, so it justmagnifies their ability to fill
everything a million times over.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So it takes a, takes a tool that's really really
special and makes itextraordinary.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Now you have his jaw taped.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yep, I figured you'd like your fingernails to stay on
your fingers that he would justnip at you, if not?
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Well, probably not probably not like a puppy.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
No, probably not.
It's one of those things whereyou know Fingers are cheap, you
know tape is cheap, fingers ornot.
One of those kind of things.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Right, could he do some damage at this size?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, you take your fingernail off, oh.
Yeah when they're little, whenthey're first hatched, you can
have them hanging off of everyfinger and have no problems at
all.
But as soon as that, you know,maybe a few months go by.
That changes pretty fast andthat's dead opposite with
crocodiles.
Crocodiles when they comestraight out the egg they will.
They're just not a good thing,you know really teeth are
already super long and ready togo.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
And they have a tooth , of course, exposed in the
bottom.
So they can you just put inyour hands over his mouth?
They can they can cut you.
Alligators have an overbite, soit's just have a.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
That's nice that way, he's really cute.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, he's a team player.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
You go.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh, greg, he's a good boy.
He was once Greg.
Close your ears for a second.
He was once called string beanand he grew out of string bean
and wanted to be Greg.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So I was told and do they like being handled?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, I mean he gets.
He's used to it because he'sbeen been dealing with that
since he was a young in okay.
And this is what again, this iswhat he does for a living.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
But what do you do when you see one in the wild?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
because he looks pretty cute, can enjoy enjoy
looking at him from a distanceand move on and move on.
Yep, you got to understand thatit's only one in a hundred.
That makes it a four feet outof a nest.
So your typical nest is between24 and 48 eggs and it's so it's
about one and three nests.
That actually makes it to beinga four foot animal.
You have figured their food foreverything, their food for
(21:49):
other alliators, their food forotters, birds of prey, you name
the thing.
It's all eating them.
That's why reptiles in generallay a lot of eggs and have a lot
of young, because they knowmost of them are gonna yeah.
They feed the local environment.
Oh, wow one of that, again, oneof the blessings behind the
animal that's.
That's how, that's how it works.
Lots of free protein.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So when you capture them, do you always put them in
it like a safe place, like thezoo that you put?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
So we, when we're doing our research with them,
we're catching them, we'retaking blood here in the back of
his head.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Okay, we're taking urine.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So we'll catheterize them and then we'll take a piece
of tissue here, one of theirfirst up Right soft their tail,
and then we put a pit tag rightbehind their ear and we kick
them on the button.
Send them on their way.
Oh really yep, whole processtakes about 15 minutes which we
can catching him taking thesamples and send them on and
what are you looking for in thesamples?
We look at heavy metals, toxinsforever, chemicals and what are
(22:42):
you finding it's?
it's some interesting stuff.
Yeah, we just finished up astudy in the st John's and we're
moving on to the rest of therest of our now interesting,
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And do you ever have to kill them?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
There's different situations around the around the
world where, if you know if ananimal's killed somebody, that's
the end of his story.
Yeah it's killed somebody orhurt somebody, that's into their
story, which is very sad.
Again, it's a very sad thingfor anybody involved on both
sides, including the animal, Imean it's he makes that kind of
mistake.
It's costing him his life.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
How often do we hear about that, like per year?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
this year's it's again, it's.
Florida grows over.
I think the last I heard we'regetting a thousand people a day
showing up to Florida.
They're moving here.
Yeah as Florida continues togrow, wildlife interactions are
gonna continue to happen, theseconflicts are gonna be more and
more common and Education, likewe do and have with these
neighborhoods, these communities, are gonna become more and more
(23:39):
important because it's yeah,everything's being encroached
upon.
Yeah you can say we're takingtheir homes away.
People have to have somewhereto live right they have to have
somewhere to live.
Then turn.
You're gonna have things,you're gonna have conflict, it's
.
These are tough conversationsto have, but they need to be
happy, they need to be happeningand we need to be having them
right, when?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
when is this guy gonna retire?
Due to his, he's gonna grow,yeah yeah, that is him retired.
This is him retired this is.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
this is hard as easy as have to work the rest of his
life here you go.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
It was very nice meeting you.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
All right, buddy.
Thanks for being a team player.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
He's like I'm just chilling.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yep Again, this is, this is his jam.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
They ever get super active.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, he'll sometimes have a temper tantrum, but it's
it's a look like.
Lot of throwing himself aroundin different directions and
running around the circles.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, what do you think that means?
Is he hungry?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It's him saying I've had enough, stop touching me now
.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And put me away.
Okay, yeah, all right.
Well, thank you, greg.
You also brought a few morecritters.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I did Brought a couple of our more common
critters here on the Space Ghostthat I flank her maybe, maybe
important to talk about okay,let's talk about it.
Oh, so nobody likes to talkabout snakes, but I like to talk
about snakes.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
All right, yeah me and snakes, but I'll be brave
Because I need to get educated,right.
That's the whole point, this istrue.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So this guy here is called a red rat snake or a corn
snake, depending who you'retalking to you.
It's probably one of the mostcommon snakes we have in the
state of Florida, right therewith Probably with the black
racer.
You see they have what we callchevrons there in their back.
Just jump on in, you'll be allright.
Wow black and white there onthe bottom they're known for
(25:31):
having their checkers in thebottom and if you can see what
on their face just like thewater snakes we have.
if he's pulling away, yeah justlike the water snakes we have
here, they have what looks likestitches on their face.
That's that tells you right offthe bat it's not a venomous
snake the stitches on his facevertical lines.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yep, our water snakes have the same thing.
He's pretty cool, isn't?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
he.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Again, the more relaxed you are with animals,
the more relaxed they are.
I'm gonna just don't let himget wrapped up in the mic,
because then we'll be here for aminute.
No, he'll go.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
He'll knows where he'll go hide his belly is like
super Silky or shiny it'sactually a biological property
of their skin.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It's really neat.
Yeah really neat.
She's a Freshly shed too, so ohis that?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
yeah, she's very.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Again, you can see she's working what we call a
Jacobson's gland.
There she's sticking her tongueout.
Yeah tasting the environment.
So right now she knows whatyour favorite color is.
You're probably your homeaddress, your tag number, all
the important things.
She's got it all worked out.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
She's settling down.
I think I am too, wow, okay, sothis one might be mistaken for
a lot of people see it and gowell, man, that's a, that's a
copperhead.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
like guys, we don't have copperheads.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
We don't have, so this is just fine to see out in
the wild, yeah it's probably oneof the more common snakes
people will see on their frontyard.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Sometimes you'll see them climbing up the side of the
stucco.
I mean they're they're anarboreal snake.
They spend a lot of time intrees and climbing.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Oh cool, yep.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
And if you have a chicken coop, you'll probably
you'll probably find one.
They call them a calm, achicken snake, for a reason.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
They like the chicken .
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, rat snakes, yellows and reds, can be called
chicken snakes or corn snakes.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Okay, can I ask you a dumb question?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I don't think there are dumb questions around, well.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
They talked about like a glass snake.
Yeah, the glass lizard, yeah,yeah is it true that if you just
smash them on the ground, he'llbreak like a piece of glass?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I hope nobody's smashing one on the ground, but
they will.
They will lose their tail.
They are a lizard.
Their skeleton has a, theirskeleton has.
It has legs.
Oh, so it's one of theinteresting things people use to
talk about Evolution andadaptation and a lot of other
things.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Really cool.
All right, so nothing to fearhere.
If I'm touching it, it's fine,but but you don't want to do
that in the wild right, justleave alone.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, there's.
There's no chance of gettingbit by a wild snake if you don't
go putting your hands on thewild snake.
You know things still, thingsstill happen again.
But if you're mining your peasand queues, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
You can limit those opportunities for bad things to
have teeth.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Oh yeah, everything can bite.
Oh yeah, okay, yep, no muzzlethere.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
No, muzzle Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
We're cool.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
We're fine, all right .
Speaker 2 (28:15):
This one's a team player.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, she's cool, he, she, who's that?
She, she nice to meet you lady,really cool.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
These other two are not team players.
Okay so we'll just look and nottouch these two.
Okay, this warning you ahead oftime.
So this is a yellow rat snake,the cousin of the one we just
looked at this is a strictlyarboreal snake, spins Most all
his life in trees.
Oh, only time you'd see himhave a tree is if he's coming
down to climb to another tree.
Interesting.
(28:48):
Eat birds, there, again anotherone.
It's very common in chickencoops because they love, they
love chicken eggs.
Let's see where he's at.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I actually didn't realize how how snakes would be
up in trees.
I always thought to look forthem on the ground.
Okay, so she's.
She's not as Um yep.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So this is this is a four-line yellow rat snake.
Okay, what's interesting aboutthis guy?
Like with a lot of our snakeshere in Brevard County, they
look very, very different whenthey're young versus when
they're adults.
Okay, this is actually oursecond largest indigenous
species to the state of Florida.
They get over eight feet long.
You can almost make out thechevrons that are still there,
as this one's growing, but theylook a lot like the red rat
(29:30):
snake but, with this backgroundalmost gray when they're young
and they lose all those, allthose chevrons and get the
stripes.
Our black racers know them arethe same thing.
They look like a red rat snakewhen they're young and as they
get older they lose all that andbecome jet black.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I feel like I've seen black racers like in my garage
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, yeah, pretty common very the most common
snake in the state of Florida.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Okay that I doubt but these ones a little more.
Why don't I want to handle thisone?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
This was a wild snake as of a handful of days ago.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Oh really.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah, he's here just to hang out with you guys, and
then he's back on his way afterthis.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Oh, where did you catch him?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Do in research?
Yeah doing research.
Yeah, he's one of our researchsnakes, so we will enjoy looking
at him, use him for aneducational program opportunity
like this and then send him.
Send him out in his way.
They're very you see the bigeyes.
They're known for being a veryvisible snake.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Always tell people I carry a snake whistle so I catch
all my snakes.
Nobody ever gets my jokes.
Snakes don't have ears.
You know they have.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
they don't have external ears, so right, yeah,
do you ever wear snake skin orleather, anything like that?
No you shy away from that.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
No, not I like snakes .
I don't really want to wearthem.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I mean nothing on with somebody that does, it's
just not my thing.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I figured you either were, you weren't.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
but yep, not really my thing.
Yeah, all right, we'll put thisguy away.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
All right, bye, bye.
And so you're just taking them,you say, for research purposes.
Give me an example of what.
What are you trying to find out?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Are you just we're just documenting what's on the
properties the population it isjust seeing what's there.
You know, I mean just getting aspecies list to go and have a
what's there on the properties.
Okay what's traveling back andforth and what's going on, yeah
and this is through yourfoundation, or are you helping
other?
We do this through ears.
Yeah, it's one of the manythings we do, yeah that's really
cool.
(31:21):
Okay, so this guy King on ityeah he actually eats other
snakes for a living, so it'salways very interesting to bring
him out after you've had othersnakes around you because, he's
automatically on.
There's a Scooby snacksomewhere nearby.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Oh my gosh, and and is this part of your?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
This is, this is one of our snakes.
We use for educational programs.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
But he's a he's a sneak attacker.
Oh, he will sneak attack yourfingers.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Okay, I'll stay back.
Oh, oh, that's a great color onhim though.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
This is your Florida King snake, so we do have these
here in Brevard.
Okay, the ones we have aretypically almost flip-flopped.
Where this guy's white andblack, ours will be black and
white in the whole opposite side.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Can we hold him up?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, oh.
Oh and again, you see thosesame stripes on his face.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
He's got a bigger tongue, he's just a bigger boy.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yep Again, king snake , because that's what they do is
eat other snakes.
They are the king.
He will take every opportunityhe has to grab something.
They don't constrict it.
Those grab it and startswallowing it.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Hence the smaller head and big body, so he can
just do whatever he wants.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
How often do they eat ?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Depends on what he's eating.
This one we've got where heeats mice.
If they're eating snakes, thattakes them a while to digest
that.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Interesting Yep.
And then you'll see the lump inhis body.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, he'll double or maybe sometimes triple their
body weight just by doing that,until they processed it.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I've always wondered how they eliminate.
There's no visual cue for that.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
No, reptiles, just like birds, have something
called a cloaca, so that holdstheir sexual organs and holds
their digestive tract within it.
So they're holding concealedweapons, basically.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Where is it though?
Is it in their underbelly At?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
their base of their underbelly Yep, like where you
had your hand out in thealligator.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
You had your hand over that, so he didn't give you
a bad wildlife experience.
Oh, okay, because if you holdit there, If you hold your
finger there, it keeps him frompeeing on you.
Yeah, just in case you wantedto.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
There was like an old joke Robin Williams had said
for a long time that was hisfavorite word, because you could
call somebody that and they hadno idea you were insulting them
.
A colloquia, a cloaca.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
A cloaca.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
All right, I'll add that to my list of insults.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Frank, you had a really bad surgery lately.
When was that?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
2020.
2021.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, an open heart surgery in 2021.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I had found out.
You know I've been.
I'd been up catching gatorswith the guys in North Carolina
and just I felt myself slowingdown.
I didn't know what was going on.
You know, I went to mycardiologist and said, hey, you
know, I don't, don't feel right,like what's happening after
some tests.
He's like well, it's time,frank.
I said, yeah, what?
What is it time for?
Well, that valve.
You're going to have to eitherhave that valve replaced or
(34:26):
repaired.
You better start looking forsomebody that can do it, because
you're you're different.
You're a tall, thin guy.
I had a chest surgery as a kidit was called Pectis Escavotum,
where they they cut me this wayactually flipped my sternum,
broke all my ribs, reformed mywhole chest and I wore a metal
bar for a year in there.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I read about that Is that was that just a?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It was a repair that, yeah, my chest was thin.
They kind of built my chest outa little bit.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
And yeah, that was a good time as a kid.
Remember my, my, my dad and mybrother trying to stick magnets
to me.
It was pretty funny.
They made made the best out ofit.
You know what I mean Like Romanand Michelle.
Yeah, it was a titanium bar, sothat was never going to work,
but it was, it was still.
It was still pretty fun as akid.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
But yeah, oh Lord, yeah.
So I, you know I startedsearching for a doctor who to do
the surgery, was reallystruggling to find somebody to
do it.
You know, I did.
I did tell you that Mount Sinaihad reached out to me and said
that, hey, we'll actually bringyou up here and do this for you.
But it was.
I was like man, I don't knowanybody in New York, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Have to fly somewhere .
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Who knows how long I'm going to be in ICU.
Right, I'd rather do that downhere somewhere, if I can find
somewhere closer to home.
And, you know, not findinganybody, even finding them.
Wgn up in Chicago, hook me upwith them and with a doctor who
ended up doing my heart surgery.
Wow, the medical team that hadactually been down here and done
research with us and, you know,went there, met the guy.
(35:49):
He's like, yeah, I feel prettygood about it and I'm like, well
, that's the first person totell me you felt pretty good
about it.
And he's like, well, it'll beabout an eight hour surgery
because we don't want to do avalve replacement, we want to do
a valve repair With the workyou do we really don't want you
on blood thinners.
It's not a not a good mix havingyou on blood thinners, because
it's going to take us one animal, Nick and you somewhere, and
you're going to bleed out in thefield.
So let's put, let's let's gothe extra time and do the repair
(36:13):
and so like okay.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Because the replacement my father-in-law had
like a pig valve put in.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, they'll do that , or a mechanical one, usually,
oh Yep, so they can do thosesurgeries in the course of,
maybe, you know, 45 minutes,hour and a half, okay, but he
spent the extra time this guy isShans to go through and really
dig into it.
And you know, I didn't.
That's one of the blessingsbehind the whole Gator in
Chicago thing.
Yeah, I didn't have any healthinsurance.
(36:39):
I've never really been able toafford health insurance.
It gets health insurance isinsanely insanely expensive.
I do this work because I love it.
You know, going up there inChicago meeting those people.
They were able to.
They were able to help me findthe doctor to do my heart
surgery and they fundraise themoney and paid my health bills
off on top of that.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
So that's just.
That's a blessing.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Yeah, just the blessings.
It's, you know, again, being aperson of faith, it's the good
Lord putting you where you needto be at the right time, and
it's just repeatedly happeningin my life, over and over and
over again, and there's nodoubting that it's God putting
you where you need to be.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And you're good to go now.
You're healthy.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah, it was two years.
A couple months ago Filled thebest I ever felt.
I was in Belize catchingcrocodiles, three months out of
open heart surgery and spent twoweeks in ICU afterwards.
My lungs didn't wake up so theyhad to inabate me again and
took had to relearn how to walkand all that good stuff.
So it's been a journey which,again, we all have.
(37:37):
There's a lot of people thathave.
some have even crazier healthjourneys than that, and it's
it's what you make out of it.
You can decide you want tospend the rest of your life on
the couch or you want to get upand get something done.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
You got to get up and go.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
If you want to get feeling better, you get up and
you get after it.
Yeah, yep.
So yeah, I was in Belize, Ithink, three months out,
catching crocs with them downthere, and yes, so heart surgery
is not going to stop you.
No, no, lord willing.
No, it's been very good.
I probably feel better now thanI've ever felt.
I have gears that I never evenknew were there.
Nice, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
And what do you hold for the future then?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I'm going to keep building this nonprofit and keep
going to it.
We have yearly events we'redoing now, which we're probably
going to be starting makingby-yearly events our Ears of the
Environment EcoFest events.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Right, that's in January.
Yeah, we're doing that inJanuary 19th.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yep, january 19th in Cocoa Village.
We've got some amazing sponsorsbehind us Pat, fisher-nesan,
space Coast Executive Airport,brevard Zoo, st Augustine,
alligator Farm.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Will he be there?
Will Chance.
No no no, I'm not going to putChance through that he's been
through enough.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Yeah, he deserves it.
He deserves a chill.
Yeah, without a doubt.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
There's a lot of amazing nonprofits behind us.
Hello again, books there inCocoa Village.
They've always been a hugesupporter of us and what we're
doing.
So that day of event we'rehaving presentations inside from
9 to 4 in the Civic Centerthere in Cocoa Village and then
at 4 o'clock we move outside andwe have live music the rest of
the evening out there in theamphitheater.
(39:12):
So it's going to be a great timeShould be a great time, but
again, without these amazingpeople that are supporting me
and my research and all theseincredible groups around Brevard
County that are doing so manylife altering things with our
ecosystems and our environments.
I mean, if you guys haven'ttalked to the guys at the zoo,
(39:34):
keith Winston and Zach and allthose people about the things
that the zoo is involved withand doing.
I mean everything from theaquarium on the difference
they're making here locally.
This it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, you guys are cleaning stuff up, educating.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Trying.
Yeah, all you got to do is justkeep trying.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
And I love how you run your podcast out of
Titusville High School.
I was telling you that Hoover,back in my day, had a TV
production studio, but it wassmall and it was limited space.
Tell me what you're doing there, and are the kids pumped?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah, it's great.
We do our Ears podcast atTitusville High School.
It allows the students to runthe graphics and the audio and
the cameras and everything we'redoing.
Let's them be involved.
It's a class after class.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
It's a class after school.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
We've had a lot of amazing guests on there.
Like I was telling you earlier,we've had everybody from George
went from cheers on todifferent people here locally
that are making a big differencewe had.
I think the one that's going uptoday is Lorelei Thompson Lady
who owns Dixie Crossroads ofTitusville and she's a big, huge
(40:44):
influence to a lot of people inthe wildlife world because all
the incredible work she does.
Just every week we're trying tobring something new, show
people, people here locally andkind of mix in some stars from
around everywhere that are doingneat stuff.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Amazing.
Well, that's great.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Again, way above my favorite, just trying to be a
blessing to others.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Well, it also gives the students a chance to see how
things work and maybe maketheir own content someday.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
There's a lot of the kids that are helping us, that
want to go on to be able to dotheir own podcasts and they want
to see how it's run.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
It's giving them ideas and things to run off of,
and a lot of them are going toschool after this and are able
to put that on their resume.
Like hey, look I helped do thisfor two or three years, which
we're on year three of ours.
So it's great, it's great.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
That's good.
Tell me about what you alsodeal with possums.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Are you just catching them to just we come up in the
daily research, we come acrosspossums quite a bit.
They've become one of myfavorite animals.
Really oh my gosh, I lovepossums.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Tell me more.
We used to have a little familyin our backyard up in New
Jersey.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah, we, you know.
They're such an incrediblecritter that's so misunderstood.
Their blood chemistry doesn'tallow them to get rabies because
their blood temperature is solow.
They don't carry anyblood-borne pathogens.
Very rarely there is a type ofparasite that they'll carry in
their urine, but that's a wholedifferent story.
Their blood naturally kills anytick or anything that bites
(42:17):
them.
They're known for eating ticks.
That's not their main foodsupply.
It's kind of been amisconception for a long time.
But they will eat ticks.
Any tick that bites them dies.
It's just it's almost likethey're walking around, they're
cleaning up trash.
They're killing these animalsthat can hurt us.
They don't carry any diseasesother than, you know again, the
one parasite they carry in theirurine.
They're a very importantcritter to have around locally
(42:39):
that everybody takes for granted.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Because you might be able to study how they eliminate
the ticks, so that there's beena lot of different things going
on with that.
Yeah, a lot of people arestudying those things Well that
brings me to, because I saw thatyou said that alligators or
crocodiles correct me thatthey're the perfect single
species for human health andthat their blood chemistry is
like nothing else, like you'resaying that they can help us
(43:03):
figure out HIV cancer.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I think they will be the eventual cure for a lot of
things at LS, a lot of theresearch we do.
So to break it back down alittle bit blood chemistry on
crocodilians we know their bloodkills every known virus and
bacteria.
On contact you can take a dropof their blood, put it on the
HIV virus.
It kills it right then andthere.
The delicate thing is they're acold-blooded animal.
(43:26):
They have a nucleated red bloodcell where we don't.
There's some differences there.
Their blood clotting factor.
They can lose a limb, it canclot up like jelly, right then
and there their blood.
And so we don't quiteunderstand how that works on
that side.
And of course you can't putthat into a person or it's going
to cause blood clots and a lotof terrible things that happen.
So we're trying to figure outexactly the dynamics behind that
.
But again, their blood killsevery known virus and bacteria.
(43:49):
What we're looking at beyondthat with them is their
endocrine system.
Their reproductive hormones aredirect match for ours.
They're like 99.9% the same.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
So what we're doing is we're using them as a
sentinel species for humanhealth.
They're an apex predator, sothey eat everything in the
environment.
They're eating the birds, theturtles, the fish, each other,
whatever's there.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Oh really, they eat each other.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Oh yeah, very common thing.
It allows them to be basicallya floating file of information
to go take information from.
So you go there, you pick upyour file out of the cabinet,
you find out what you need toknow and you move on to the next
file Just what they're there todo.
And we have an issue herelocally with a lot of different
types of chemicals that peopleknow the words now and know
(44:34):
what's going on and we're justtrying to dig further into it.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Yeah, so yeah, let's go back to that, because you
take the blood sample from theback of the neck and you find
these have a lot of blood.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
I mean when I grew up here, we would see a rocket
launch, maybe once a year.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
And now it's like once a week maybe, yeah, so all
these things are it's not.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
You can't point the finger in one place.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
This is all stuff that's due to I mean there's so
many different levels ofcontamination around our local
area.
You can start with septic tanksand you can go on to large
industrial areas.
I mean you can blame it oneverybody from people in their
yards putting fertilizers out toyou name it.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
It's one of those things where we need everybody
to kind of get on board and cometogether and make a difference
as one before anybody startsgiving anybody else a hard time.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Well, how do we do that?
How do we just it's educationagain, it's education,
understanding what the sourcesof contamination are and
eliminating them.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
It has to be one at a time, eliminating them,
eliminating one at a time, butthen get everybody in the whole
community to buy into whatyou're trying to do.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
Okay, and that's how you make a difference.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Well, I mean, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (45:50):
in your life to sort of minimize that.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Are you not?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
doing like pesticides , are you not?
I've never used pesticides,ever.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Never ever, never, ever in my yard have I ever done
anything like that.
I don't use fertilizers orpesticides.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
I try to handle things like that naturally with
other animals.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, I try to let them work it all out on their
own.
Yeah, I remember when.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
I was a kid, that's one of the things we used to
always go do.
We'd wait for rainy nights andgo out with brown paper bags and
collect toads, that was.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
we'd come fill up the whole yard with toads.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
That was again.
You want to keep away animals.
You find a way to balance itout With another animal, or even
a plant, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
No doubt.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, we've got to think more like that.
Yeah, now you're kind of hardto press them and go out and
find a toad somewhere, justdon't exist anymore.
They're around, they're justhard to find what happened to
them.
Their issue is like with a lotof other animals I mean, when I
was a kid poor St John was fullof a lot of things that aren't
there anymore.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
It's a lot of it's pesticides being sprayed.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
It wipes things out, so we have to stop that yeah,
stop the pesticides Stop all thethings.
Yeah, I know I feel like weneed to just wipe everything
clean and start over.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
We're probably that's kind of where we're at right
now with the world in general,and we've kind of screwed a lot
of stuff up.
It's time to everybody kind ofgo wash their hands and back up
for a minute and go, let's startchanging things.
Know what's going to be thefirst thing to change?
Yeah, let's change it.
Make a choice and go with thatand do one thing at a time.
Well, are the?
Speaker 3 (47:26):
right people listening to you Like you can
educate till you're blue in theface, but if the people in
charge are not doing anythingabout it then I think there's a
portion of our country thatlistens to things.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
People again.
Our world is so divided rightnow In so many different ways.
Environmental stuff is just onemore thing I think divides
people.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
It's kind of sad to say that but until we get
everybody to kind of buy intowhat's going on and the purposes
we have behind doing it it'sgonna be hard for us to get any
real change.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Yeah, I mean, it just seems like such a black and
white issue, right?
Don't spray chemicals on yourmind.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
I think everybody pretty much says that about any
issue that's going on in ourcountry right now, because
they'll be on one side the other.
It's 50-50, one way or theother, no matter what it is.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Oh, that's unfortunate it is it is.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
You can't go tell people their ideas are messed up
.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Well, because they won't listen.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
That would just be wrong in the first place.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah, yeah, everybody's entitled to their
own ideas, but yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
We've come to a crisis in this world.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
And we need more people like you to educate us
and get us on the right track.
I hope I can make a difference.
I think you are.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Thank you, I want to just do one more than before you
leave.
Speaker 4 (48:47):
I know that I love your suit.
I love your tie.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
I kind of dressed down today because I thought
we're going to get rugged here,but you look amazing.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
I still wear the flip-flops.
It bounces it all out.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
It really does you have to wear the flip-flops in
Florida.
Yeah, I can't do shoes and asuit.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
It doesn't work together.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
Flip-flops and a suit .
You can still flip-flops.
It gets up and done.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
When you were in Chicago.
I read all the articles.
You actually had a man and alady friend up there.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
How's that going?
Speaker 2 (49:18):
I mean, that was just a Didn't work out.
The distance-thinking thatworked out.
Yeah, that's tough.
Are you seeing anybody here?
Speaker 4 (49:25):
No no.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Just me and the greasy beard.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
I heard that you maybe wanted to chop the beard
off.
I've been thinking about it andgoing back and forth about it.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
It's about time to restart the journey I challenge
any hair salon that wants tocall us and make it happen what?
Speaker 4 (49:46):
do you think?
Speaker 1 (49:46):
about that.
Would you do?
Speaker 3 (49:48):
it If we set it up for you.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, I'd consider it for sure.
That would be great.
I would consider it for sure.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
All right, let's hold you to that.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
I do have a sponsor that sponsors me at Pintitis
Pill.
It's Sweet, caroline Her placeup there.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
She takes care of my hair and keeps it pretty good.
It's funny.
When I was up there last week,I was like Caroline, I think
it's time.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
She's like Frank, it looks good.
Why would you cut it off?
I'm like maybe it's time she'slike don't just stop talking
about it.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
She's encouraging you because I'll go back and forth.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I know because, it's your look right.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
And you wear it well.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
It's hard to cut it off right before an event,
because I'll go to my own eventand nobody will know who I am.
Speaker 4 (50:34):
Yeah, who's the tall linky fellow?
Speaker 3 (50:38):
in the corner.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
That's not.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Frank.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
It can't be, frank.
Because, I look like I'm about12 without this thing.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Really, there's a filter that you can see.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Believe it or not, Chicago has done some stories on
my beard being shaved off.
Speaker 4 (50:56):
It's out there.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Everybody's just on pins and needles about it.
I don't know about that.
They've done stories when Ishaved it before.
Oh, you have shaved it before,so there's photo evidence.
This is, I think, eight months.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
I really shaved quite a bit.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
If you had a beard growing contest, I'm pretty sure
I'd win it.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
I'd say it doesn't take long.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
No, no, by all means.
I had to shave clean beforesurgery and then I shaved about
eight months ago.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
Here's your surgery picture, but we can't see
because you have a mask on yourface.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, that was right after they pulled the tube out
of my chest the breathing tube,the pressure mask, good times.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
You're a.
You're a chipper.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
It's hard to look at those pictures.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Really.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Remember them calling me after surgery several times
from the hospital and being likeso, Frank, how do you feel I'm
blessed?
I feel super blessed to be here.
When you feel depressed, I'mlike depressed.
Why would I be depressed?
I didn't realize it, butapparently when people get their
chest cracked, it's a verycommon thing for depression to
really take over on people.
I'm like I never felt that way.
(52:11):
I felt super excited to stillbe alive and to still be
enjoying my friends and familyand the work I do.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
I can imagine.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
It was so nice there.
I told the doctors I'm like,look, I'm not going to be
comfortable unless you guys letme pray with everybody before
surgery starts.
And you know like 20 people inthe room I said, sure, they
stopped everything, broughteverybody to bed.
I pray with everybody.
And you know that just that wasput me super, super at ease.
And you know I had had someother friends I had made in
(52:44):
Chicago that had had the samesurgery years beforehand and
they had.
They gave me some ideas and somethoughts on things and I was
like writing a letter out to allmy family and friends.
Like each one of them got theirown letter.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
Like if I didn't make it.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
You know, everybody knew where I was at, where I was
standing with, stood withthings.
I knew, I knew I was happy,knew everything was good.
And you know, you, just you seewhat the good Lord has in mind
for you next.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Yeah, and you took that second shot of life and
doing great things, and I'm sohappy that we connected and that
we got to meet you and have youhere in the studio.
If there's anything that we cando, please let us know, because
you're obviously an amazing guyand, yeah, let us know how we
can help.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
Absolutely Honored guys.
Honored is all mine and yeah,if you guys are not busy January
19th, I hope you'll come maybeset up a table and tell people
about the stuff you guys aredoing here.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
And we'll for sure get you on the year's podcast as
well.
Oh, I'd love to 1000%.
We'll get you guys both inthere.
Thank you, frank, so much.
Thanks for coming.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Thank you for sharing all of your critters.
It was fun for me and we'll seeyou next time.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
To be a sponsor or nominated guest.
Hit us up on the socials Untilnext time.
Bye.
This podcast is brought to you by Place Pros,
Commercial and Investment RealEstate, and NikoTour Boutique,
your one-stop shop foreverything cool.
Thank you so much for beinghere today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yes, ma'am, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So let me just get into your story.
There was an alligator namedChance the Snapper in Chicago
and it was evading even theirlocal guy who was named
alligator Bob, and youralligator Rob.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Ma'am, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, and he couldn't catch him, so then they
contacted you.
How did they know to contactyou?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
They had reached out to the state of Florida, the
mayor's office up there inChicago, animal Care and Control
.
They had reached out to a bunchof different local zoos, the St
Augustine Alligator Farm farm,and everybody said, well, you
want the guy who's the longesttenured guy, who's been doing
that work forever.
Here's the guy.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Here's the guy.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Which is very humbling, very, very humbling.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, so you've been catching gators all your life.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
This is year 28 doing it professionally.
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
But you grew up in a family that had that background.
Like your uncle, he was like alegend.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I hear yes, ma'am, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Bill.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Rob Gator, bill.
Yep, he did the work for about20 years himself, for then Game
and Fish, and then, when itturned to Fish and Wildlife,
yeah, did the nuisance alligatorwork for a very long time as
well?
Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Nuisance, alligator work, that's what it's called.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, and then.
So you got called up to Chicago, and then your whole world
changed.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, I was already very well known and blessed to
be very well known for my workand it's just, it's different.
I didn't know what to expectgoing up there.
I got a call randomly onemorning saying, hey, we need
some help in Chicago with thisgator.
Again, I've been following thestory.
Oh you had, and it neverexpected you to phone call about
(01:58):
it.
I think we had joked about you.
Know it'd be interesting ifthey called you.
What would you do then?
Like, I guess I go to Chicagoand catch an alligator, I guess
Went up there, remember arrivingon the scene to this place and
there's a mariachi band playing,there's a couple dozen news
crews, there's people, there'sfood trucks, there's people
selling t-shirts and buttons,and I mean thousands of people
(02:20):
wrapped around this lagoon onthe southwest side of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Because they were like 10 days in to try to catch
him.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, and they were.
There's this misconceptionpeople have that.
Well, they were all freakingout and scared.
No, they were legitimatelyexcited to see something
different in the city of Chicago.
It was entertainment, you know.
They were really into it.
Everybody was there waiting tosee it like a glimpse of him,
you know, and I just nobody knewwho I was at that point.
So I just kind of just walkedaround asking questions and
(02:48):
looking to see what was going onand you'd hear people like look
, there he is.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
But you knew right away to like clear them out.
You knew that if you had ever achance to catch him, this is
not the way to do it.
All the pomp and circumstance.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, there had been so much activity there and he
had been chased around by otherpeople that were looking for him
that the best thing you can doin a situation with an animal is
just get out of dodge, justback off, let things chill out.
They flipped the lights off inthe park and I went to work and
I was able to get it worked out.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And the reason he was there was probably like a pet
that had gone awry.
Maybe I read something about.
Maybe it was like a drugdealer's pet.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
There's yeah, it's one of the two.
Believe it or not, they'recoming up there in drug raids.
The law enforcement comes upwith one drug raids quite a bit.
It was one of the two things,but it was 100% a captive animal
.
You can see the way his nosewas bent was from being in
captivity and something toosmall for the area.
He was too big for the area hewas in and it kind of bent his
nose back.
So yeah, so rough life ofanimals.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So you cleared the whole place out and you gave him
some time to calm down andemerge.
But it was your.
You speak the language.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, one of the many studies we've done a long time
through through Ears.
My Non-Profit is vocalizationstudies, so we will take
everything.
There's 28 different species ofcrocodilians.
We'll take hatchlings,juveniles and adults and record
the sounds they make, becausewhen you travel to other
countries to work with thoseanimals, it helps to be able to
say hey, buddy, here I am, comeon, let's get some blood from
(04:19):
you, come here, let's take asample.
And they'll belly up at the barpretty much.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
They will.
So how do you say hi to analligator?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Something along those lines, and there's also mating
calls that are more like realdeep, real deep bellows.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Bellows yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
It's actually a B flat, believe it or not.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
We've learned it's a B flat.
And then I also read that theyhad different dialects.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
They do, depending on what part of the country
they're in.
We'll do work in North Carolinacatching gators up there and
you can tell they hear theFlorida man show up and start
speaking alligator to him.
They all kind of go what in theworld is going on.
This is either the mostentertaining thing we've ever
heard in our entire lives orthis guy's insane.
We don't know which one.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That is hilarious.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
We're going to do a combination of them both.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Oh my God, that's fascinating.
So you were able to call himout.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yes, yeah, called him out.
I catch probably 99% of theanimals that we do work with via
fishing rod, so he just likefoul hook and a fish.
You just snag him, bring him in.
We put a catch pole on him,tied him up and took him
straight over to Chicago AnimalCare and Control from there.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Wow, and he was like a what five foot.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yes, ma'am, five foot three Wow.
Yeah, he's a big old boy thesedays.
I'll actually be up thereFriday to see him in.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
St Augustine.
He's in St Augustine now,living the life.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yep, living the rock star life, the rock star
alligator life.
Nobody even knew that was athing until then.
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
But you too.
So after this happened, youwent on this like whirlwind of
celebrity.
Tell us you met the mayor.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, they kind of sort of gave me the key to the
city.
Yeah, it was a blessing.
It was neat to meet her andchat with her.
It's been one thing after theother since that whole story.
You know it's hard to even putit into words.
What a sincere blessing it'sbeen.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
You met all the big people in Chicago.
You went to Wrigley Field, youthrew out the first pitch and
now your friends with all ofthem.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yep, yep, good peoples you met.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Jerry Springer.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Which I had no idea who that was.
But yeah, that's a wholedifferent story too.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah that's so great.
Who else?
What else have you sort of comeinto?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Don't events up there with everybody you can think of
the Murray family.
Don't events up there withDolores Jordan, michael Jordan's
mom.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
The Murray family being Bill Murray's family.
Yes ma'am, and what are theyinto?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
They're huge supporters of first responders.
They have a nonprofit they runwhere they support basically
first responders and militaryaround the world, and that's
them and a lady named BetsyShepard that take care of all
that.
And they bring in lawenforcement officers and
military from around the country, around the world, that have
had instances whether that be aschool shooting, a building
(07:13):
collapse, whatever might begoing on to kind of give them a
couple days to take their mindoff all that stuff.
It's a golf tournament they doevery year.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
That's really nice.
It's called Canal Shores.
So you're involved and you'reconnected now and you even wrote
a book, Our American Alligator.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, that's kind of my life's work all in one place.
I'm going to put all of ourresearch up into that point that
we've done in one area.
So when people have alligatorrelated questions they can just
go there and they can find itall Anatomy, physiology, myths,
you name it.
It's all in there with picturesfrom around Brevard County that
have alligators in weird spotsthat we've worked with forever.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's so cool and because alligators have been
around like since the dinosaurs,am I right?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, you know what happened to the dinosaurs, don't
you?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
They got eaten by alligators?
They sure did.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
You went with that very well.
You rolled right into that.
That was like killed my jokeline.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
But yeah, that was perfect.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Sorry.
No, that was good, that was.
You're the first one to everlike.
Just put it right out there.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Okay, knew my punchline before I ever got
there.
That was good stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Sorry about that, but you've also like done
children's books, like you'rereally taking the celebrity to
great places.
You also have your own podcastand you invite everybody on that
has something to say.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, it's a lot like what you guys are doing.
We're just trying to be ablessing to people, not only in
the wildlife world, but peoplethat are local here, that are
that need that five minutes totalk about what they're doing
and discuss it, and everybodyhas such a unique journey and a
story, and if you can find a wayto highlight that and what's
going on, then I feel likeyou're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Well, yeah, you have to have those conversations.
So you also made a foundationthe environmental education,
awareness, research, support andservices.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yes, ears, yes, oh, we jokingly say ears.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
It's double E a R, double S.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Talk to me about that .
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So that was something I put together right before
everything in Chicago happenedand it was again just right
place, right time Again.
As a person of faith, I believethat's the good Lord kind of
putting things together the waythey're supposed to be.
And we were put together toprovide educational programs,
which we've been doing forever.
I think we did 100 educationalprograms last year from
everybody, from elementaryschools, every library in the
(09:30):
county.
We hit.
We covered DoD you name thegroups, we go there.
We do safety programs for them.
Blue Origin you name them, wego there, talk to them about the
animals that are there.
What to be worried about, whatnot to be worried about?
We travel internationally to doand work.
We just got back from Belize.
What three weeks ago?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I saw that you helped make a pen for the alligators
that they catch.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, yeah, they needed a pen for their
crocodiles, so we made a newsetup for them, and then we went
out and caught some crocsaround Belize City down there.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Alligators, crocodiles?
I know that the difference isin their snout, but you always
you keep referencing them as allcrocodiles.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
They're crocodilians, yeah, they're all that fits
alligator, crocodile, kamen.
And then there's always oneoddball group with scientists
always have what you're calledgaryls.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Garyls, what are those?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Those are the fish eating crocodiles in India.
They have the real long nose.
The ball in the end.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Oh wow, but you don't stop at crocodilians.
I have seen you, you wereholding snakes and possums.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
We do a lot of amazing work Through ears,
beyond the educational outreach,we do Biodiversity research
here across Brevard County andthe Air Force Base.
Now, where we go out of theseproperties, we set a raise,
we'll put out carpets, we'll putout Coverboards, whatever we
can do to kind of document theAnimals and species that are
(10:57):
there, that are traveling backand forth with the habitat types
, mm-hmm.
That helps them update theirland management plans, helps
them get more grant funding forwhat they're doing, and it's
just it's.
It's vitally important to knowwhat's there so you can know how
to take care of what's there.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, I hear that Florida has like the most
Alligators anywhere.
Is that right or like Louisiana?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
has four times as many as we do.
Four times.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Okay, and then we're, we're we have a solid million.
Yeah, we have a solid millionand and right around the place
where you grew up in Titusville.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Right there's a poor st John.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, poor st John.
There's a lake there that has alot.
So how are you educating peopleand like, what do you?
What's the goal?
Is it to to keep them like inline, or to you're catching them
a lot?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, so with crocodilians in general, one of
the things we try to preach isNot be complacent, you know
under your surroundings, don'tbe complacent.
This is a story we kind ofpreach globally, right?
So I'm also part of a groupcalled the crocodile specialist
group and I sit on a humancrocodile conflict board for
them.
So we try to preach being awareof your surroundings, which I
(12:05):
mean everybody should be doingall the time anyhow.
Right, but be aware yoursurroundings, understand there's
better things to worry about,and I jokingly say there's.
You know, worry about taxes orterrorism.
You know, worry about somethinglike that, because an alligator
is nothing.
It's gonna sneak up and killyou.
It's not the way it works.
The instances where locallyhere, people are getting bitten
or hurt anywhere around thestate, it's People that are
(12:28):
taking things for granted, ifyou're, if you're feeding an
animal and you expect somethingbad not to happen to you.
You kind of being silly right.
I mean especially a wild animal, and beyond that, if you're
feeding that animal, you'resetting the next person up for
failure.
It might not be you.
You're setting the next personup for failure.
And if you're going out andlet's say, a wildlife area, a
(12:48):
wild area in the middle of thenight and going for a swim, and
you get bit by an alligator,imagine that well, maybe make
better choices.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
That happened in Disney World, or is it land or
world?
Here it's land.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, that was a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Tell me how that was different, because I started
looking into that and they knewthey had a problem.
You know they were.
They took like four alligatorsout Right before that happened
and four more after it happened.
I guess there might have beensigns there.
The people in that case didn'tpress charges or anything.
What happened there?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So there's sometimes where you understand when
something like that happens,it's a terrible day for the
person, it's a terrible day forthe animal.
They both made mistakes thatthey're not going to probably
ever get over.
If the if the person livesthrough it, the animals not
going to live through it, youknow it's gonna.
It's gonna be bad on both ends.
And once you understand thatand you kind of, each one of
(13:44):
them has it their own dynamic toit.
Each conflict like that has itsown dynamic.
That was people that theyweren't from here, they didn't
know.
It's hard to educate somebodyor blame somebody from something
that they have no knowledge of.
That was just a terriblesituation that happened.
That really I don't thinkanybody could have controlled
differently.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
No, you don't think so.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I mean taking all the alligators.
Have an area is not the answer.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
There's a.
There's a fine line there.
You will meet communities, youknow, because we'll go to
communities like we were in thegreat outdoors after the guy
lost his leg.
They're in the great outdoorsand had that conversation for a
thousand of their homeownersthere and in the area.
It's something you have toApproach very delicately and let
people know.
Look, there's there's no rightanswer here as far as Every
(14:30):
alligators should be kept, keptsafe all the time, and every
alligators should be taken out.
It's somewhere in between.
More on the animals all stayingthere.
It just needs to be moreawareness and Education given on
what is what is a concern.
Is what is not a concern?
Right and that's where you youapproach the, the fine line of
everybody having their own ideaof it, but there's still a right
(14:51):
and a wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Okay, so it's it's again.
It's different with them.
We just have to do it wiselyand they're a keystone species.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
They're there for a reason they're they're a very
important animal to have in thelocal ecosystem.
You have to have them there.
Without them being there,everything starts to fall apart.
So I mean they're providingfood for other animals, they're
providing homes for otheranimals.
They keep everything in abalance.
Okay, they're apex.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Predators tend to do that which an alligator is okay,
but it sometimes it just getsout of hand, and that's when you
get called in that's well,that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I haven't done that work in a while, but that's
usually when that happens.
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Wow.
And so now you're justeducating people and how to be
more aware and Yep, which is anon-stop.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I mean, it's what we're, it's what you guys are
doing right now.
It's what we should all befinding ways to do with.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Whatever we're doing, education should be a main
mindset in Whatever's going onwith anybody the one thing that
I learned that now you Clear itup for me because you know they
say if you, if you run into analligator, you have to run
zigzag.
But now it's like I hear thatthat's not not accurate
information.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
You should just bolt well, first thing, an alligator
is never gonna chase you.
So you don't have to worryabout that in the first place.
Interactions like that aregonna happen within five to
eight feet of the water.
If an animal is coming up toyou, that's an animal that's
probably been fed or you knowit's.
You're gonna be able to see andunderstand things like that.
If you're out of the waterEnough to go Okay, something's
(16:17):
wrong.
It's probably time to back up.
Yeah just make yourself big.
Back away, things will be good.
Okay, and there's always thismisconception too about mating
season or nesting season, whichI like to say it's actually
called Mm-hmm.
There's only about 10% offemales that'll Legitimately
protect a nest.
It's very rare.
Most females if you come acrosstheir nest, they're gonna see
you.
They're gonna be like any otheralligator.
(16:37):
They're gonna bail out, neverwant to see you again.
They're not gonna hang around totalk about it.
You will meet again.
Probably one in ten that willturn around and hiss at you or
jog toward you.
All you gotta do is just backup and you're good to go.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, and I heard the hiss is what you should watch
out for, not necessarily thatbellow or the you know, the
stuff.
So you see in cartoons it'swhen they start.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Hissing, is when they're Upset they're all
individuals, just like we are.
There's some that are Not sosmart, just like people.
There's some that are super,like super Einstein's geniuses,
and there's some that are verytemperamental and there's some
that are just the most laid-backcritter in the entire world.
There's they mean, every sideof the spectrum.
They all hit it.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Wow, and you brought one here today.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yes, ma'am, yeah, it's hard to be alligator Robin.
I have an alligator with you.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
It's a hard mix.
Sure, yeah, let's take a lookat him.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
So this is Greg.
Greg, okay, he's very sensitiveabout his name.
This is Greg, with three G's.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Three G's at the top or three G's at the end.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And Is Greg a genius or is he?
Oh my god, he's a little guy.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yep, this is Greg.
He's one of our educationalanimals, so this is what he does
for a living.
You know, one of the manythings we try to talk about the
people, about these guys, is youknow that they grow very, very
slow.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
They grow very, very slow.
Yeah, sure you can hold him.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
So he doesn't pee on you.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
there you go, oh you want to put put fingers here.
So he's an alligator yes, ma'amAmerican alligator, just don't
squeeze him too hard.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I don't want to.
Oh my gosh, he looks like he'ssmiling.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
That's what beautiful thing about crocodilians
they're all.
They're all always smiling.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
So he's, what about two feet?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
He's not quite two feet not quite.
Yeah, he's a foot, maybe a footand a half and how old is he?
He's two Yep in the wild.
That'd be a be a three-year-oldprobably.
There he's, this is him doinghis work for a living, you know
so he gets it.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
He gets it pretty easy, he's just hanging out.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, this is what.
This is what he does.
You know, we get to talk abouthim and his osteoderms and his
eyes and the sensory organs theyhave around their mouth and how
they work and how they're built, and it just yeah, I see like a
slit between his eye or rightafter his eye.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
What is that?
Is that those are his ears?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yep, so they're actually flaps.
That's what this whole arearight here is behind his eye.
They're actually baffles.
They'll actually work likebutterfly wings.
They can move like butterflywings.
And then you know when you seehim blink there you can see his
nicotating membrane Come and,come forward and go back.
They got five fingers in theirfront hands with three claws and
four fingers in the back Handswith three claws, and right here
where your middle finger at, isactually half of his body.
(19:20):
That's their midpoint, righthere where your middle fingers
at.
So they're exactly half.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Half tail half body.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
If you look at, those little dots around his face.
Yeah, those are sensory organs.
We call them ISOs.
Each one of those little dotscan fill one drop in a thousand
gallons.
So imagine if he's out in apond somewhere and there's a
fish in distress or there's aturtle that's hurt or somebody's
feeding the animals.
They can fill that beunderwater, come right to it,
pick it up, grab stuff and moveon from it, never have to even
(19:47):
surface.
Interesting thing alligatorsand Cayman have those around
their mouth.
Crocodiles have those littledots on every scale across their
entire body, so it justmagnifies their ability to fill
everything a million times over.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So it takes a, takes a tool that's really really
special and makes itextraordinary.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Now you have his jaw taped.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yep, I figured you'd like your fingernails to stay on
your fingers that he would justnip at you, if not?
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Well, probably not probably not like a puppy.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
No, probably not.
It's one of those things whereyou know Fingers are cheap, you
know tape is cheap, fingers ornot.
One of those kind of things.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Right, could he do some damage at this size?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, you take your fingernail off, oh.
Yeah when they're little, whenthey're first hatched, you can
have them hanging off of everyfinger and have no problems at
all.
But as soon as that, you know,maybe a few months go by.
That changes pretty fast andthat's dead opposite with
crocodiles.
Crocodiles when they comestraight out the egg they will.
They're just not a good thing,you know really teeth are
already super long and ready togo.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
And they have a tooth , of course, exposed in the
bottom.
So they can you just put inyour hands over his mouth?
They can they can cut you.
Alligators have an overbite, soit's just have a.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
That's nice that way, he's really cute.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, he's a team player.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
You go.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh, greg, he's a good boy.
He was once Greg.
Close your ears for a second.
He was once called string beanand he grew out of string bean
and wanted to be Greg.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So I was told and do they like being handled?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, I mean he gets.
He's used to it because he'sbeen been dealing with that
since he was a young in okay.
And this is what again, this iswhat he does for a living.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
But what do you do when you see one in the wild?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
because he looks pretty cute, can enjoy enjoy
looking at him from a distanceand move on and move on.
Yep, you got to understand thatit's only one in a hundred.
That makes it a four feet outof a nest.
So your typical nest is between24 and 48 eggs and it's so it's
about one and three nests.
That actually makes it to beinga four foot animal.
You have figured their food foreverything, their food for
(21:49):
other alliators, their food forotters, birds of prey, you name
the thing.
It's all eating them.
That's why reptiles in generallay a lot of eggs and have a lot
of young, because they knowmost of them are gonna yeah.
They feed the local environment.
Oh, wow one of that, again, oneof the blessings behind the
animal that's.
That's how, that's how it works.
Lots of free protein.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So when you capture them, do you always put them in
it like a safe place, like thezoo that you put?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
So we, when we're doing our research with them,
we're catching them, we'retaking blood here in the back of
his head.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Okay, we're taking urine.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So we'll catheterize them and then we'll take a piece
of tissue here, one of theirfirst up Right soft their tail,
and then we put a pit tag rightbehind their ear and we kick
them on the button.
Send them on their way.
Oh really yep, whole processtakes about 15 minutes which we
can catching him taking thesamples and send them on and
what are you looking for in thesamples?
We look at heavy metals, toxinsforever, chemicals and what are
(22:42):
you finding it's?
it's some interesting stuff.
Yeah, we just finished up astudy in the st John's and we're
moving on to the rest of therest of our now interesting,
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And do you ever have to kill them?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
There's different situations around the around the
world where, if you know if ananimal's killed somebody, that's
the end of his story.
Yeah it's killed somebody orhurt somebody, that's into their
story, which is very sad.
Again, it's a very sad thingfor anybody involved on both
sides, including the animal, Imean it's he makes that kind of
mistake.
It's costing him his life.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
How often do we hear about that, like per year?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
this year's it's again, it's.
Florida grows over.
I think the last I heard we'regetting a thousand people a day
showing up to Florida.
They're moving here.
Yeah as Florida continues togrow, wildlife interactions are
gonna continue to happen, theseconflicts are gonna be more and
more common and Education, likewe do and have with these
neighborhoods, these communities, are gonna become more and more
(23:39):
important because it's yeah,everything's being encroached
upon.
Yeah you can say we're takingtheir homes away.
People have to have somewhereto live right they have to have
somewhere to live.
Then turn.
You're gonna have things,you're gonna have conflict, it's
.
These are tough conversationsto have, but they need to be
happy, they need to be happeningand we need to be having them
right, when?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
when is this guy gonna retire?
Due to his, he's gonna grow,yeah yeah, that is him retired.
This is him retired this is.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
this is hard as easy as have to work the rest of his
life here you go.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
It was very nice meeting you.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
All right, buddy.
Thanks for being a team player.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
He's like I'm just chilling.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yep Again, this is, this is his jam.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
They ever get super active.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, he'll sometimes have a temper tantrum, but it's
it's a look like.
Lot of throwing himself aroundin different directions and
running around the circles.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, what do you think that means?
Is he hungry?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It's him saying I've had enough, stop touching me now
.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And put me away.
Okay, yeah, all right.
Well, thank you, greg.
You also brought a few morecritters.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I did Brought a couple of our more common
critters here on the Space Ghostthat I flank her maybe, maybe
important to talk about okay,let's talk about it.
Oh, so nobody likes to talkabout snakes, but I like to talk
about snakes.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
All right, yeah me and snakes, but I'll be brave
Because I need to get educated,right.
That's the whole point, this istrue.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So this guy here is called a red rat snake or a corn
snake, depending who you'retalking to you.
It's probably one of the mostcommon snakes we have in the
state of Florida, right therewith Probably with the black
racer.
You see they have what we callchevrons there in their back.
Just jump on in, you'll be allright.
Wow black and white there onthe bottom they're known for
(25:31):
having their checkers in thebottom and if you can see what
on their face just like thewater snakes we have.
if he's pulling away, yeah justlike the water snakes we have
here, they have what looks likestitches on their face.
That's that tells you right offthe bat it's not a venomous
snake the stitches on his facevertical lines.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yep, our water snakes have the same thing.
He's pretty cool, isn't?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
he.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Again, the more relaxed you are with animals,
the more relaxed they are.
I'm gonna just don't let himget wrapped up in the mic,
because then we'll be here for aminute.
No, he'll go.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
He'll knows where he'll go hide his belly is like
super Silky or shiny it'sactually a biological property
of their skin.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It's really neat.
Yeah really neat.
She's a Freshly shed too, so ohis that?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
yeah, she's very.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Again, you can see she's working what we call a
Jacobson's gland.
There she's sticking her tongueout.
Yeah tasting the environment.
So right now she knows whatyour favorite color is.
You're probably your homeaddress, your tag number, all
the important things.
She's got it all worked out.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
She's settling down.
I think I am too, wow, okay, sothis one might be mistaken for
a lot of people see it and gowell, man, that's a, that's a
copperhead.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
like guys, we don't have copperheads.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
We don't have, so this is just fine to see out in
the wild, yeah it's probably oneof the more common snakes
people will see on their frontyard.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Sometimes you'll see them climbing up the side of the
stucco.
I mean they're they're anarboreal snake.
They spend a lot of time intrees and climbing.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Oh cool, yep.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
And if you have a chicken coop, you'll probably
you'll probably find one.
They call them a calm, achicken snake, for a reason.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
They like the chicken .
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, rat snakes, yellows and reds, can be called
chicken snakes or corn snakes.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Okay, can I ask you a dumb question?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I don't think there are dumb questions around, well.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
They talked about like a glass snake.
Yeah, the glass lizard, yeah,yeah is it true that if you just
smash them on the ground, he'llbreak like a piece of glass?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I hope nobody's smashing one on the ground, but
they will.
They will lose their tail.
They are a lizard.
Their skeleton has a, theirskeleton has.
It has legs.
Oh, so it's one of theinteresting things people use to
talk about Evolution andadaptation and a lot of other
things.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Really cool.
All right, so nothing to fearhere.
If I'm touching it, it's fine,but but you don't want to do
that in the wild right, justleave alone.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, there's.
There's no chance of gettingbit by a wild snake if you don't
go putting your hands on thewild snake.
You know things still, thingsstill happen again.
But if you're mining your peasand queues, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
You can limit those opportunities for bad things to
have teeth.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Oh yeah, everything can bite.
Oh yeah, okay, yep, no muzzlethere.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
No, muzzle Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
We're cool.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
We're fine, all right .
Speaker 2 (28:15):
This one's a team player.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, she's cool, he, she, who's that?
She, she nice to meet you lady,really cool.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
These other two are not team players.
Okay so we'll just look and nottouch these two.
Okay, this warning you ahead oftime.
So this is a yellow rat snake,the cousin of the one we just
looked at this is a strictlyarboreal snake, spins Most all
his life in trees.
Oh, only time you'd see himhave a tree is if he's coming
down to climb to another tree.
Interesting.
(28:48):
Eat birds, there, again anotherone.
It's very common in chickencoops because they love, they
love chicken eggs.
Let's see where he's at.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I actually didn't realize how how snakes would be
up in trees.
I always thought to look forthem on the ground.
Okay, so she's.
She's not as Um yep.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So this is this is a four-line yellow rat snake.
Okay, what's interesting aboutthis guy?
Like with a lot of our snakeshere in Brevard County, they
look very, very different whenthey're young versus when
they're adults.
Okay, this is actually oursecond largest indigenous
species to the state of Florida.
They get over eight feet long.
You can almost make out thechevrons that are still there,
as this one's growing, but theylook a lot like the red rat
(29:30):
snake but, with this backgroundalmost gray when they're young
and they lose all those, allthose chevrons and get the
stripes.
Our black racers know them arethe same thing.
They look like a red rat snakewhen they're young and as they
get older they lose all that andbecome jet black.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I feel like I've seen black racers like in my garage
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, yeah, pretty common very the most common
snake in the state of Florida.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Okay that I doubt but these ones a little more.
Why don't I want to handle thisone?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
This was a wild snake as of a handful of days ago.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Oh really.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah, he's here just to hang out with you guys, and
then he's back on his way afterthis.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Oh, where did you catch him?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Do in research?
Yeah doing research.
Yeah, he's one of our researchsnakes, so we will enjoy looking
at him, use him for aneducational program opportunity
like this and then send him.
Send him out in his way.
They're very you see the bigeyes.
They're known for being a veryvisible snake.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Always tell people I carry a snake whistle so I catch
all my snakes.
Nobody ever gets my jokes.
Snakes don't have ears.
You know they have.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
they don't have external ears, so right, yeah,
do you ever wear snake skin orleather, anything like that?
No you shy away from that.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
No, not I like snakes .
I don't really want to wearthem.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I mean nothing on with somebody that does, it's
just not my thing.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I figured you either were, you weren't.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
but yep, not really my thing.
Yeah, all right, we'll put thisguy away.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
All right, bye, bye.
And so you're just taking them,you say, for research purposes.
Give me an example of what.
What are you trying to find out?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Are you just we're just documenting what's on the
properties the population it isjust seeing what's there.
You know, I mean just getting aspecies list to go and have a
what's there on the properties.
Okay what's traveling back andforth and what's going on, yeah
and this is through yourfoundation, or are you helping
other?
We do this through ears.
Yeah, it's one of the manythings we do, yeah that's really
cool.
(31:21):
Okay, so this guy King on ityeah he actually eats other
snakes for a living, so it'salways very interesting to bring
him out after you've had othersnakes around you because, he's
automatically on.
There's a Scooby snacksomewhere nearby.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Oh my gosh, and and is this part of your?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
This is, this is one of our snakes.
We use for educational programs.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
But he's a he's a sneak attacker.
Oh, he will sneak attack yourfingers.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Okay, I'll stay back.
Oh, oh, that's a great color onhim though.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
This is your Florida King snake, so we do have these
here in Brevard.
Okay, the ones we have aretypically almost flip-flopped.
Where this guy's white andblack, ours will be black and
white in the whole opposite side.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Can we hold him up?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, oh.
Oh and again, you see thosesame stripes on his face.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
He's got a bigger tongue, he's just a bigger boy.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yep Again, king snake , because that's what they do is
eat other snakes.
They are the king.
He will take every opportunityhe has to grab something.
They don't constrict it.
Those grab it and startswallowing it.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Hence the smaller head and big body, so he can
just do whatever he wants.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
How often do they eat ?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Depends on what he's eating.
This one we've got where heeats mice.
If they're eating snakes, thattakes them a while to digest
that.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Interesting Yep.
And then you'll see the lump inhis body.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, he'll double or maybe sometimes triple their
body weight just by doing that,until they processed it.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I've always wondered how they eliminate.
There's no visual cue for that.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
No, reptiles, just like birds, have something
called a cloaca, so that holdstheir sexual organs and holds
their digestive tract within it.
So they're holding concealedweapons, basically.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Where is it though?
Is it in their underbelly At?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
their base of their underbelly Yep, like where you
had your hand out in thealligator.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
You had your hand over that, so he didn't give you
a bad wildlife experience.
Oh, okay, because if you holdit there, If you hold your
finger there, it keeps him frompeeing on you.
Yeah, just in case you wantedto.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
There was like an old joke Robin Williams had said
for a long time that was hisfavorite word, because you could
call somebody that and they hadno idea you were insulting them
.
A colloquia, a cloaca.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
A cloaca.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
All right, I'll add that to my list of insults.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Frank, you had a really bad surgery lately.
When was that?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
2020.
2021.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, an open heart surgery in 2021.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I had found out.
You know I've been.
I'd been up catching gatorswith the guys in North Carolina
and just I felt myself slowingdown.
I didn't know what was going on.
You know, I went to mycardiologist and said, hey, you
know, I don't, don't feel right,like what's happening after
some tests.
He's like well, it's time,frank.
I said, yeah, what?
What is it time for?
Well, that valve.
You're going to have to eitherhave that valve replaced or
(34:26):
repaired.
You better start looking forsomebody that can do it, because
you're you're different.
You're a tall, thin guy.
I had a chest surgery as a kidit was called Pectis Escavotum,
where they they cut me this wayactually flipped my sternum,
broke all my ribs, reformed mywhole chest and I wore a metal
bar for a year in there.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I read about that Is that was that just a?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It was a repair that, yeah, my chest was thin.
They kind of built my chest outa little bit.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
And yeah, that was a good time as a kid.
Remember my, my, my dad and mybrother trying to stick magnets
to me.
It was pretty funny.
They made made the best out ofit.
You know what I mean Like Romanand Michelle.
Yeah, it was a titanium bar, sothat was never going to work,
but it was, it was still.
It was still pretty fun as akid.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
But yeah, oh Lord, yeah.
So I, you know I startedsearching for a doctor who to do
the surgery, was reallystruggling to find somebody to
do it.
You know, I did.
I did tell you that Mount Sinaihad reached out to me and said
that, hey, we'll actually bringyou up here and do this for you.
But it was.
I was like man, I don't knowanybody in New York, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Have to fly somewhere .
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Who knows how long I'm going to be in ICU.
Right, I'd rather do that downhere somewhere, if I can find
somewhere closer to home.
And, you know, not findinganybody, even finding them.
Wgn up in Chicago, hook me upwith them and with a doctor who
ended up doing my heart surgery.
Wow, the medical team that hadactually been down here and done
research with us and, you know,went there, met the guy.
(35:49):
He's like, yeah, I feel prettygood about it and I'm like, well
, that's the first person totell me you felt pretty good
about it.
And he's like, well, it'll beabout an eight hour surgery
because we don't want to do avalve replacement, we want to do
a valve repair With the workyou do we really don't want you
on blood thinners.
It's not a not a good mix havingyou on blood thinners, because
it's going to take us one animal, Nick and you somewhere, and
you're going to bleed out in thefield.
So let's put, let's let's gothe extra time and do the repair
(36:13):
and so like okay.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Because the replacement my father-in-law had
like a pig valve put in.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, they'll do that , or a mechanical one, usually,
oh Yep, so they can do thosesurgeries in the course of,
maybe, you know, 45 minutes,hour and a half, okay, but he
spent the extra time this guy isShans to go through and really
dig into it.
And you know, I didn't.
That's one of the blessingsbehind the whole Gator in
Chicago thing.
Yeah, I didn't have any healthinsurance.
(36:39):
I've never really been able toafford health insurance.
It gets health insurance isinsanely insanely expensive.
I do this work because I love it.
You know, going up there inChicago meeting those people.
They were able to.
They were able to help me findthe doctor to do my heart
surgery and they fundraise themoney and paid my health bills
off on top of that.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
So that's just.
That's a blessing.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Yeah, just the blessings.
It's, you know, again, being aperson of faith, it's the good
Lord putting you where you needto be at the right time, and
it's just repeatedly happeningin my life, over and over and
over again, and there's nodoubting that it's God putting
you where you need to be.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And you're good to go now.
You're healthy.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah, it was two years.
A couple months ago Filled thebest I ever felt.
I was in Belize catchingcrocodiles, three months out of
open heart surgery and spent twoweeks in ICU afterwards.
My lungs didn't wake up so theyhad to inabate me again and
took had to relearn how to walkand all that good stuff.
So it's been a journey which,again, we all have.
(37:37):
There's a lot of people thathave.
some have even crazier healthjourneys than that, and it's
it's what you make out of it.
You can decide you want tospend the rest of your life on
the couch or you want to get upand get something done.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
You got to get up and go.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
If you want to get feeling better, you get up and
you get after it.
Yeah, yep.
So yeah, I was in Belize, Ithink, three months out,
catching crocs with them downthere, and yes, so heart surgery
is not going to stop you.
No, no, lord willing.
No, it's been very good.
I probably feel better now thanI've ever felt.
I have gears that I never evenknew were there.
Nice, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
And what do you hold for the future then?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I'm going to keep building this nonprofit and keep
going to it.
We have yearly events we'redoing now, which we're probably
going to be starting makingby-yearly events our Ears of the
Environment EcoFest events.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Right, that's in January.
Yeah, we're doing that inJanuary 19th.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yep, january 19th in Cocoa Village.
We've got some amazing sponsorsbehind us Pat, fisher-nesan,
space Coast Executive Airport,brevard Zoo, st Augustine,
alligator Farm.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Will he be there?
Will Chance.
No no no, I'm not going to putChance through that he's been
through enough.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Yeah, he deserves it.
He deserves a chill.
Yeah, without a doubt.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
There's a lot of amazing nonprofits behind us.
Hello again, books there inCocoa Village.
They've always been a hugesupporter of us and what we're
doing.
So that day of event we'rehaving presentations inside from
9 to 4 in the Civic Centerthere in Cocoa Village and then
at 4 o'clock we move outside andwe have live music the rest of
the evening out there in theamphitheater.
(39:12):
So it's going to be a great timeShould be a great time, but
again, without these amazingpeople that are supporting me
and my research and all theseincredible groups around Brevard
County that are doing so manylife altering things with our
ecosystems and our environments.
I mean, if you guys haven'ttalked to the guys at the zoo,
(39:34):
keith Winston and Zach and allthose people about the things
that the zoo is involved withand doing.
I mean everything from theaquarium on the difference
they're making here locally.
This it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, you guys are cleaning stuff up, educating.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Trying.
Yeah, all you got to do is justkeep trying.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
And I love how you run your podcast out of
Titusville High School.
I was telling you that Hoover,back in my day, had a TV
production studio, but it wassmall and it was limited space.
Tell me what you're doing there, and are the kids pumped?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah, it's great.
We do our Ears podcast atTitusville High School.
It allows the students to runthe graphics and the audio and
the cameras and everything we'redoing.
Let's them be involved.
It's a class after class.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
It's a class after school.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
We've had a lot of amazing guests on there.
Like I was telling you earlier,we've had everybody from George
went from cheers on todifferent people here locally
that are making a big differencewe had.
I think the one that's going uptoday is Lorelei Thompson Lady
who owns Dixie Crossroads ofTitusville and she's a big, huge
(40:44):
influence to a lot of people inthe wildlife world because all
the incredible work she does.
Just every week we're trying tobring something new, show
people, people here locally andkind of mix in some stars from
around everywhere that are doingneat stuff.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Amazing.
Well, that's great.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Again, way above my favorite, just trying to be a
blessing to others.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Well, it also gives the students a chance to see how
things work and maybe maketheir own content someday.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
There's a lot of the kids that are helping us, that
want to go on to be able to dotheir own podcasts and they want
to see how it's run.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
It's giving them ideas and things to run off of,
and a lot of them are going toschool after this and are able
to put that on their resume.
Like hey, look I helped do thisfor two or three years, which
we're on year three of ours.
So it's great, it's great.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
That's good.
Tell me about what you alsodeal with possums.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Are you just catching them to just we come up in the
daily research, we come acrosspossums quite a bit.
They've become one of myfavorite animals.
Really oh my gosh, I lovepossums.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Tell me more.
We used to have a little familyin our backyard up in New
Jersey.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah, we, you know.
They're such an incrediblecritter that's so misunderstood.
Their blood chemistry doesn'tallow them to get rabies because
their blood temperature is solow.
They don't carry anyblood-borne pathogens.
Very rarely there is a type ofparasite that they'll carry in
their urine, but that's a wholedifferent story.
Their blood naturally kills anytick or anything that bites
(42:17):
them.
They're known for eating ticks.
That's not their main foodsupply.
It's kind of been amisconception for a long time.
But they will eat ticks.
Any tick that bites them dies.
It's just it's almost likethey're walking around, they're
cleaning up trash.
They're killing these animalsthat can hurt us.
They don't carry any diseasesother than, you know again, the
one parasite they carry in theirurine.
They're a very importantcritter to have around locally
(42:39):
that everybody takes for granted.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Because you might be able to study how they eliminate
the ticks, so that there's beena lot of different things going
on with that.
Yeah, a lot of people arestudying those things Well that
brings me to, because I saw thatyou said that alligators or
crocodiles correct me thatthey're the perfect single
species for human health andthat their blood chemistry is
like nothing else, like you'resaying that they can help us
(43:03):
figure out HIV cancer.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I think they will be the eventual cure for a lot of
things at LS, a lot of theresearch we do.
So to break it back down alittle bit blood chemistry on
crocodilians we know their bloodkills every known virus and
bacteria.
On contact you can take a dropof their blood, put it on the
HIV virus.
It kills it right then andthere.
The delicate thing is they're acold-blooded animal.
(43:26):
They have a nucleated red bloodcell where we don't.
There's some differences there.
Their blood clotting factor.
They can lose a limb, it canclot up like jelly, right then
and there their blood.
And so we don't quiteunderstand how that works on
that side.
And of course you can't putthat into a person or it's going
to cause blood clots and a lotof terrible things that happen.
So we're trying to figure outexactly the dynamics behind that
.
But again, their blood killsevery known virus and bacteria.
(43:49):
What we're looking at beyondthat with them is their
endocrine system.
Their reproductive hormones aredirect match for ours.
They're like 99.9% the same.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
So what we're doing is we're using them as a
sentinel species for humanhealth.
They're an apex predator, sothey eat everything in the
environment.
They're eating the birds, theturtles, the fish, each other,
whatever's there.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Oh really, they eat each other.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Oh yeah, very common thing.
It allows them to be basicallya floating file of information
to go take information from.
So you go there, you pick upyour file out of the cabinet,
you find out what you need toknow and you move on to the next
file Just what they're there todo.
And we have an issue herelocally with a lot of different
types of chemicals that peopleknow the words now and know
(44:34):
what's going on and we're justtrying to dig further into it.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Yeah, so yeah, let's go back to that, because you
take the blood sample from theback of the neck and you find
these have a lot of blood.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
I mean when I grew up here, we would see a rocket
launch, maybe once a year.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
And now it's like once a week maybe, yeah, so all
these things are it's not.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
You can't point the finger in one place.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
This is all stuff that's due to I mean there's so
many different levels ofcontamination around our local
area.
You can start with septic tanksand you can go on to large
industrial areas.
I mean you can blame it oneverybody from people in their
yards putting fertilizers out toyou name it.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
It's one of those things where we need everybody
to kind of get on board and cometogether and make a difference
as one before anybody startsgiving anybody else a hard time.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Well, how do we do that?
How do we just it's educationagain, it's education,
understanding what the sourcesof contamination are and
eliminating them.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
It has to be one at a time, eliminating them,
eliminating one at a time, butthen get everybody in the whole
community to buy into whatyou're trying to do.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
Okay, and that's how you make a difference.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Well, I mean, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (45:50):
in your life to sort of minimize that.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Are you not?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
doing like pesticides , are you not?
I've never used pesticides,ever.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Never ever, never, ever in my yard have I ever done
anything like that.
I don't use fertilizers orpesticides.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
I try to handle things like that naturally with
other animals.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, I try to let them work it all out on their
own.
Yeah, I remember when.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
I was a kid, that's one of the things we used to
always go do.
We'd wait for rainy nights andgo out with brown paper bags and
collect toads, that was.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
we'd come fill up the whole yard with toads.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
That was again.
You want to keep away animals.
You find a way to balance itout With another animal, or even
a plant, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
No doubt.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, we've got to think more like that.
Yeah, now you're kind of hardto press them and go out and
find a toad somewhere, justdon't exist anymore.
They're around, they're justhard to find what happened to
them.
Their issue is like with a lotof other animals I mean, when I
was a kid poor St John was fullof a lot of things that aren't
there anymore.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
It's a lot of it's pesticides being sprayed.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
It wipes things out, so we have to stop that yeah,
stop the pesticides Stop all thethings.
Yeah, I know I feel like weneed to just wipe everything
clean and start over.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
We're probably that's kind of where we're at right
now with the world in general,and we've kind of screwed a lot
of stuff up.
It's time to everybody kind ofgo wash their hands and back up
for a minute and go, let's startchanging things.
Know what's going to be thefirst thing to change?
Yeah, let's change it.
Make a choice and go with thatand do one thing at a time.
Well, are the?
Speaker 3 (47:26):
right people listening to you Like you can
educate till you're blue in theface, but if the people in
charge are not doing anythingabout it then I think there's a
portion of our country thatlistens to things.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
People again.
Our world is so divided rightnow In so many different ways.
Environmental stuff is just onemore thing I think divides
people.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
It's kind of sad to say that but until we get
everybody to kind of buy intowhat's going on and the purposes
we have behind doing it it'sgonna be hard for us to get any
real change.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Yeah, I mean, it just seems like such a black and
white issue, right?
Don't spray chemicals on yourmind.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
I think everybody pretty much says that about any
issue that's going on in ourcountry right now, because
they'll be on one side the other.
It's 50-50, one way or theother, no matter what it is.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Oh, that's unfortunate it is it is.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
You can't go tell people their ideas are messed up
.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Well, because they won't listen.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
That would just be wrong in the first place.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah, yeah, everybody's entitled to their
own ideas, but yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
We've come to a crisis in this world.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
And we need more people like you to educate us
and get us on the right track.
I hope I can make a difference.
I think you are.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Thank you, I want to just do one more than before you
leave.
Speaker 4 (48:47):
I know that I love your suit.
I love your tie.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
I kind of dressed down today because I thought
we're going to get rugged here,but you look amazing.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
I still wear the flip-flops.
It bounces it all out.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
It really does you have to wear the flip-flops in
Florida.
Yeah, I can't do shoes and asuit.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
It doesn't work together.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
Flip-flops and a suit .
You can still flip-flops.
It gets up and done.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
When you were in Chicago.
I read all the articles.
You actually had a man and alady friend up there.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
How's that going?
Speaker 2 (49:18):
I mean, that was just a Didn't work out.
The distance-thinking thatworked out.
Yeah, that's tough.
Are you seeing anybody here?
Speaker 4 (49:25):
No no.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Just me and the greasy beard.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
I heard that you maybe wanted to chop the beard
off.
I've been thinking about it andgoing back and forth about it.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
It's about time to restart the journey I challenge
any hair salon that wants tocall us and make it happen what?
Speaker 4 (49:46):
do you think?
Speaker 1 (49:46):
about that.
Would you do?
Speaker 3 (49:48):
it If we set it up for you.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, I'd consider it for sure.
That would be great.
I would consider it for sure.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
All right, let's hold you to that.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
I do have a sponsor that sponsors me at Pintitis
Pill.
It's Sweet, caroline Her placeup there.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
She takes care of my hair and keeps it pretty good.
It's funny.
When I was up there last week,I was like Caroline, I think
it's time.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
She's like Frank, it looks good.
Why would you cut it off?
I'm like maybe it's time she'slike don't just stop talking
about it.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
She's encouraging you because I'll go back and forth.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I know because, it's your look right.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
And you wear it well.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
It's hard to cut it off right before an event,
because I'll go to my own eventand nobody will know who I am.
Speaker 4 (50:34):
Yeah, who's the tall linky fellow?
Speaker 3 (50:38):
in the corner.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
That's not.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Frank.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
It can't be, frank.
Because, I look like I'm about12 without this thing.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Really, there's a filter that you can see.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Believe it or not, Chicago has done some stories on
my beard being shaved off.
Speaker 4 (50:56):
It's out there.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Everybody's just on pins and needles about it.
I don't know about that.
They've done stories when Ishaved it before.
Oh, you have shaved it before,so there's photo evidence.
This is, I think, eight months.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
I really shaved quite a bit.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
If you had a beard growing contest, I'm pretty sure
I'd win it.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
I'd say it doesn't take long.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
No, no, by all means.
I had to shave clean beforesurgery and then I shaved about
eight months ago.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
Here's your surgery picture, but we can't see
because you have a mask on yourface.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, that was right after they pulled the tube out
of my chest the breathing tube,the pressure mask, good times.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
You're a.
You're a chipper.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
It's hard to look at those pictures.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Really.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Remember them calling me after surgery several times
from the hospital and being likeso, Frank, how do you feel I'm
blessed?
I feel super blessed to be here.
When you feel depressed, I'mlike depressed.
Why would I be depressed?
I didn't realize it, butapparently when people get their
chest cracked, it's a verycommon thing for depression to
really take over on people.
I'm like I never felt that way.
(52:11):
I felt super excited to stillbe alive and to still be
enjoying my friends and familyand the work I do.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
I can imagine.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
It was so nice there.
I told the doctors I'm like,look, I'm not going to be
comfortable unless you guys letme pray with everybody before
surgery starts.
And you know like 20 people inthe room I said, sure, they
stopped everything, broughteverybody to bed.
I pray with everybody.
And you know that just that wasput me super, super at ease.
And you know I had had someother friends I had made in
(52:44):
Chicago that had had the samesurgery years beforehand and
they had.
They gave me some ideas and somethoughts on things and I was
like writing a letter out to allmy family and friends.
Like each one of them got theirown letter.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
Like if I didn't make it.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
You know, everybody knew where I was at, where I was
standing with, stood withthings.
I knew, I knew I was happy,knew everything was good.
And you know, you, just you seewhat the good Lord has in mind
for you next.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Yeah, and you took that second shot of life and
doing great things, and I'm sohappy that we connected and that
we got to meet you and have youhere in the studio.
If there's anything that we cando, please let us know, because
you're obviously an amazing guyand, yeah, let us know how we
can help.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
Absolutely Honored guys.
Honored is all mine and yeah,if you guys are not busy January
19th, I hope you'll come maybeset up a table and tell people
about the stuff you guys aredoing here.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
And we'll for sure get you on the year's podcast as
well.
Oh, I'd love to 1000%.
We'll get you guys both inthere.
Thank you, frank, so much.
Thanks for coming.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Thank you for sharing all of your critters.
It was fun for me and we'll seeyou next time.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
To be a sponsor or nominated guest.
Hit us up on the socials Untilnext time.
Bye.
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