Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Alligators

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

In this week's Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to discover Florida’s relationship with its 2,000 crocodiles and whopping 1.25 million alligators. Traveling to America’s oldest city, St Augustine, Farrier visits the Alligator Farm to discover why crocs are more feisty than gators, and what food they like eating. He then dives headfirst into the phenomenon of Florida Man, after discovering a man high on bath salts once climbed into the very croc enclosure he’s now looking at! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now as you may recall from the bears episode of Flightless Bird, I discovered that America is very different to New Zealand in that it's filled to the brim with terrifying animals that can kill you. Snakes, mountain lions, bears, we don't have any of that stuff back home. So you can imagine my fear when I waded into Florida, home to 2,000 crocodiles and a whopping 1.25 million alligators. There's also some tragic news tonight from Fort Pierce,

Florida, where an 85-year-old woman was killed in a rare alligator attack. Florida started tracking alligator attacks in 1948. Since then, there have been over 400 and over two dozen deaths. Each year, about eight people get bitten by a gator in the state of Florida. Near her home in a retirement community this afternoon, an 85-year-old woman was walking her dog along the water's edge. Horrified neighbors say the alligator suddenly sprung from the water and dragged her back under. Of course, relative to the population of both people and

big lizards attacks are rare but they're less rare than in New Zealand where we have exactly zero of them. Florida is also the only place on the planet where you can find both crocodiles and alligators coexisting in the wild. Saltwater and freshwater coming together in a cacophony of scales, jaws and gnashing teeth. So warm up that cold blood and get ready to get up close and personal with one of Florida's favorite four-legged hissing residents, because this is the Alligator's Episode. I hate alligators. Could you have guessed that? I mean, I'm not a big, I'm in awe of them.

I don't love them because they are dinosaurs that are still somehow walking the earth. I wouldn't invite one in the house. I'm very scared of them. Although I feel like you would invite one because you said, ding, ding, ding, throwback to Gladesman. You wanted to jump in and swim with one. Yeah, you're right. There's that part of me that's just super curious. And I'm also a huge fan.

Did you ever watch Jackass? Or was that like a boy thing? I didn't watch it yeah i love jackass and they did this great prank on their parents where they had an alligator in the kitchen no and mom came down they were always getting just absolutely terrorized and mom came down to the kitchen and there's just an alligator in the kitchen and that's one of the funniest things i've seen in my entire life so maybe i prank someone i wouldn't would i prank you don't haven't you learned that you are not supposed to do that what i learned is pranks can

be funny for you and not funny for the other person and i need to remember that but also you didn't even think that was funny because you felt bad you have to remember that too the lead up was funny and then the guilt i'm not going to put an alligator in your house i promise okay i have been looking after a little hummingbird i sent you that photo yes okay tell us what i just want to explain why i'm a bit tired i've been waking up every two hours no to feed sugar water to this little hummingbird so i was walking along i wander around the streets and there was a little tiny, what I thought was a little bumblebee on the ground. Oh.

It was a little tiny fledgling hummingbird. So it had recently graduated from the nest. Wait, it's that small? It was tiny. A bumblebee size? A bumblebee size. Yeah. Maybe I'm exaggerating.

Maybe two bumblebees. It was small. Seven bumblebees. It was small. Oh. I'll show you a photo.bees. It was small. Aww. I'll show you a photo. So do you see that guy? Aww.

Yeah, let me get closer. It's so small, you've got to get close to the phone, don't you? That is true. Oh my God, it is really small. But he looks happy. Yeah, so basically it was in really bad shape when I found it. Maybe it got hit by a car or something. So I took it home. Its parents weren't anywhere because usually if you find a bird,

pro tip, out of the nest, you shouldn't necessarily just grab it and care for it because chances are its parents will be nearby and will come down and feed it or will help it out. And if you take the bird away, it can sort of be a death sentence. But this was very disorientated. There were no parents anywhere. So I took it home yeah for the last two nights I've been putting my alarm on every couple of hours and I get up and I get a little tiny syringe with sugar water and I drip it into its little beak and its little tongue just starts in and out oh and just drinks that sugar water down and it's perked right up yesterday morning, I took it to a bird rescue. And they said, David, you've done a great job.

I went into their little database of hummingbird rescuers. And it's going to go to a big. Wait, hold on, hold on. You're now in a database of hummingbird rescuers? Yeah. I'm like a friend of the hummingbirds. So I get newsletters now about hummingbirds. Oh, you get mail.

Well, I love this mail. I welcome it. Yeah, because you love birds. I'm sure everyone remembers, but you were the perfect person to find this. I was so happy. And she had hummingbirds all over the house. It was great. They were in little containers and little cages at different stages of development.

She's looking after them all. And then she takes them all out to Huntington Beach, where there's the main hummingbird rescue center. And she drops them off there. And eventually they get re-released once they've learned how to feed for themselves. And then do you think they find their parents again? Never. No, parents are gone. They'll never be reunited. And they just live their little life. And hopefully they find a mate and they fall in love and create some new little guys why can't they find their parents i don't know for sure some of them might be able to fly from huntington beach yeah how do you how do you know for certain i don't know for certain never met you know that's a good point they might do but i think chances are though

once they can look after themselves they'll just be out doing their own thing this sounds like a pixar movie i'm thinking of selling the rights to this story anyway that is just an animal related story sure quick bit of housekeeping okay i just wanted to run a few topics past you for future episodes great that i because i want to surprise you with topics but i also think these are ones that i'm just not sure about okay ice. Ice buckets in American hotels. No. What? You know how in every American hotel, there's a little area around from the lift and there's like an ice vending machine? We don't have those in New Zealand.

But. Why do you have them? Do you? And what are they doing? If you want ice while you're in your hotel room. What are you popping ice in? Do you not put ice in fountain drinks? Yeah, yeah, the movies and stuff.

We like an icy beverage. Yeah. But it's not like you're not at a hotel and you're like, oh, my God, I wish this had ice in it. I think it's also because travelers sometimes have coolers. I think it's just providing. Oh, coolers is a good option if you're traveling. providing. Oh, coolers is a good option if you're traveling. Because I noticed this when I was traveling through Florida,

every sort of motel, mainly hotels, they all had ice machines. And I was like, that isn't a thing in New Zealand. Isn't that fascinating? Who makes them, I wonder? It must be a big industry. Well, I. Big ice. Big ice.

I suppose. That is probably people who are traveling with. Coolers, perhaps. we would say chili bins. You say coolers. Chili bins. Yeah. I was at a diner the other day. I put food all over myself.

I dribbled it. And I needed to get a, fuck, what do you call them? I was trying to say, do you have serviettes? Do you have serviettes? And they looked at me like, what are you talking about? That's what we call napkins. A wet napkin. No, a regular dry nap dry napkin and i was saying can

i have a serviette and they looked at me obviously like a freak anyway wow okay okay hold on one more thing because we're talking about episodes aaron weekly sent me a text this morning saying now he hears leaf blowers everywhere oh my god this is And he thinks of us. This is great. Yeah. I get a lot of people sending videos and images. Someone just sent me a guy in Florida who was powering his little vehicle with a leaf blower. So he had an umbrella out, leaf blower going, and it was pushing him along. Oh my goodness.

It's fucking amazing. Okay. School cafeterias. Yes, that is a yes. We don't have them in New Zealand. At all? No. So you pack your own lunch and you take it to school.

What about kids who can't afford? We have a program of schools and lunches. You'll be handed a little pack. Yeah. I mean, I've seen it in American TV shows. Like the cool kids sit at that table and the nerds are over there. Where do you guys eat lunch? Outside on the grass.

Oh. Oh. Yeah, we just get our lunch and we like sit on the grass or up a tree or something or on the tennis courts. Up a tree? On a branch. So there's no like, there's no room. There's no big room. What if it's raining? Some schools under an awning or something outside because you sort of get kicked out of the classrooms at lunchtime.

Okay, this is definitely worth digging into. Yeah, great. outside because you sort of get kicked out of the classrooms at lunchtime okay this is definitely worth digging yeah great we have a tuck shop where you can buy some chips and maybe a hot mince pie which you've learned about now but you buy this little shop and then you as i say you go out and sit in a tree or on the grass or something okay okay great school cafes dryers that you put quarters in to do your laundry laundromats laundromat no no no laundromats are not american the first time and pretty much only times i've ever used it have been in europe okay not going to do this one yeah i think you might have actually told me that before but i just got fixated on the idea because i have a little dryer and washer in my building and i'm

always trying to find quarters and so where do you find and I run out of quarters I go to the bank I go and get quarters out they've now cut it to only ten dollars of quarters a withdrawal from Bank of America oh really and so I'm always just running out of quarters all the time the banks cut me off I guess that's true some apartment buildings do have it and like colleges I guess I used it in college big industry it is i just don't think it's american okay although maybe if you do a little more deep dive and find out that it is okay last one i've found a couple on instagram that chase tornadoes through we have talked about the tornado alley and i think it'd be a great episode i do too in a car chasing tornadoes are you worried about me dying or something yeah of, of course I am.

Okay. Do we have any sort of insurance policy on Armchair Expert? I think the opposite. I think you need to sign something saying, if you die, we get all your money. Okay, right. And your family can't sue us. Okay.

Because we'll lose. An indemnity, right. Right. Okay, I'll think about it. I think it would be a good episode. I do too. I also think you can do it without you yourself chasing, but I also do think that would be interesting.

So I see the conundrum. I want to get that audio. And also they're remaking Twister this year. Oh, that's cool. So it's the time to do it. But listen, I just. The zeitgeist. We don't really have tornadoes in New Zealand.

They're a really American thing. And especially chasing, I think, is very American. Psychotic. Yes. But this is what I don't want you to do. Roll down the windows to stick out the mic to get the sound, and then you get sucked in. They're very powerful.

It would be good audio, though, wouldn't it? We'll see how hardy that Zoom H5 recorder is, Rob. See how good the hardware is. Upload directly to the cloud. What an episode. It would rate well. I'm dead. You find the Zoom recorder and it's my final podcasting VO.

Me like getting sucked up desperately trying to record the ads for the episode. I think you have to decide before. We're going to do them. I see as you're. We need the ads. We haven't recorded the ads for the episode i better help he looks oh my god okay i do have one housekeeping too oh is it a present since i got david a present i had to get monica yes i love this oh, Rob knows about even presents. I love my wallet, by the way, Rob.

I'm using it. What is this, Monica? Wow. It has nothing to do with this show, but I love it. Oh, my God. Look. You have got. Okay.

So this is incredible. This is a branded what looks like the Dunkin' Donuts. It's from Chain. Yes. BJJ. But it is Ben Affleck instead of the Dunkin' Donuts words. And it's really good. Can I just show you what my wallpaper is on my phone at the moment? Yes.

It is Ben Affleck with a bunch of Dunkin' Donuts stuff. Wait. I love this also. This can be a whole episode. Okay. First of all, thank you, Rob. This is an amazing gift. We should probably tell people about Chain real quick.

This is a good opportunity. What is it? Do you want to tell? Yeah. So it's the OTM chef, Tom Hollinsworth. Okay. Him and BJ Novak have this little pop-up thing they do. I think it's every month,

where they take kind of fast food, chain food, and then do a really elevated version of it. Oh, they did one for the new Scream, right? They did Scream and McDonald's. They did like a Wagyu bone marrow burger. Oh, yum. That was ridiculous. Food and film coming together, which is like your jam. Well, not always film.

No, they just have learned to partner with. Yeah. They chased the zeitgeist. They did a Chili's. They did Taco Bell with Wagyu. So good. So are they doing a Dunkin' Donuts one? They might have already done it.

I think it's just it's hard to get tickets because they send out like a waiting list. You've got to get them within like 30 seconds. We need to go to one soon. I want to go. This reminds me, well, maybe we should do a donuts episode, clearly. And Dunkin' is a huge part of the culture here. And I mean, could we get, I mean, we'd love to get Ben Affleck to talk. Because I mean, that's his thing, isn't it?

No, it's not. No, stop. Arms of fucking Dunkin' dunkin donut coffee dropping them all over the place i love it i respect him for it you better okay no i am a ben affleck and me no don't act like you know him like i know him okay no but that is why i wanted to check because that picture is not allowed to be mocking in my presence. Oh, I'm not mocking it. I genuinely think he's a man of the people. He is.

And I absolutely am all for him. Okay. Big Affleck. Yeah, I like seeing the photos of him with Dunkin' Donuts. Yeah. Because it's usually him like opening his door, trying to grab it before all the paparazzi take photos of him. And he's also got coffee for other people.

It's not just a coffee. He's got like six of them. He's very nice. He's like buying six of them. He's very nice. He's like buying them for people. He's a nice boy. He's a nice boy. Also, they need to leave him alone. I just really don't like the mob.

I don't know why people come for him. Because again. Because he's a big star. But it's, you know, because I was just at the air premiere. Oh, were you? Yeah, I went to the air premiere. I didn't tell you. Oh, my God. One of the best days of were you? Yeah, I went to the air premiere. I didn't tell you. Oh, my God.

One of the best days of my life. Yeah. I still haven't seen it. I want to see it. Oh, it's great. It's a very, very good movie. Cool. But it always excites me because when they're doing press,

especially if they're in a movie together, they did not come on Armchair Expert, which is, I can't, I don't want to think about it. But I get, like, you know, a whole slew of new stuff I get to watch of them. Yeah. And he's very playful and accepting over the fact that he gets picked on a lot. Like, he, like, mentions it and laughs at it. He gets the memes.

Yeah. He, like, pokes at the memes. And he's able to take it much better than i would ever be able to take it so yeah i feel him and keanu are both an incredible kind of meme-y stuff where they just have an amazing facial expression and it just captures a feeling and i think it's a wonderful thing i love him and i love this shirt thank you very much all right well that was our episode on ben all right should we get into yeah this florida adventure let's learn about some alligators okay i think i need to clear

something up before anyone gets confused new zealand doesn't have crocodiles or alligators this comes as a shock to a lot of americans i meet who assume new zealand is actually australia it's a similar perceived insult of calling an American a Canadian. Now I understand it's confusing, as New Zealanders sound similar to Australians, and Australia is geographically close to New Zealand, and Australia has a load of crocodiles. One of Australia's biggest ever shows was The Crocodile Hunter, in which host Steve Irwin would wear tight, tiny shorts as he hunted crocs. Of course, Australia also had Crocodile Dundee, a sort of Australian Indiana Jones who loved crocodiles and knives. That's not a knife.

That's a knife. And spawned a series of films including one where he came to LA. Welcome to Wendy's. Good evening Wendy. Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. My point is I may be in Los Angeles right now but I'm not Crocodile Dundee from Australia. I'm David from New Zealand, where we don't have any wild crocodiles or wild alligators. Which is why I've come to St. Augustine in Florida to visit the alligator farm, which confusingly isn't a farm.

We've never been a farm. It's kind of a silly name for us. In 1893, when we started, we couldn't really say we were a zoo. We didn't have all these cool zebras and elephants. So I think the farm just denoted there's a lot of alligators at this place, right? And it stuck. I came here to work 23 years ago, and I really thought I was going to talk them into changing the name because a lot of people, I think, drive right by thinking, oh, I don't want to go to an alligator farm. You know, what are they doing to those poor alligators? I'm talking to John, the director at the alligator farm, and the alligators here aren't poor, they're doing great. Now, St. Augustine is very, very old, America's oldest city. Founded by Spanish explorers in 1565, it's known as the first occupied settlement in America,

buildings going up 55 years before the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock. By the time the 1900s rolled around, there would be a number of tourist attractions in St. Augustine. And at that time, there was a freshwater spring, and a gentleman built a building over the spring. a spring and a gentleman built a building over the spring the sign out front said burning springs museum and he'd pipe kerosene across it and light it every morning and charge visitors to see the natural phenomenon i suppose it was proof that people would pay to see nearly anything so the people that started the alligator farm thought well they'll pay to look at that they'll pay to look at big alligators right so they just caught alligators that were here naturally put them in some pens and people have been paying us ever since to look at alligators i mean that's the story right there so this alligator

farm started as a tram site attraction then a roadside attraction but now in 2023 it's an accredited zoo the only zoo in the world with every kind of crocodile that exists. But people still mostly come here to see the alligators that are born and bred in Florida. They're everywhere. I haven't been trying to see alligators. I feel like I've seen hundreds. And yet you have them here, and people are paying to come and see them.

Can you explain the psychology of that? Well, sure. So seeing one in a ditch is what it is. You drive by it and go, oh, I think that was an alligator. If you want to get close to it, you're nervous about it. And maybe it's going to be a problem. Maybe it's not. I don't know that much about these big things. They're like a dinosaur in the wild. What do I do?

But here we've got the fence backing you up and you can get a nice close look at some of these really cool, impressive animals. Last year, Florida was the fastest growing state. Something I find kind of strange considering it's literally full of dinosaurs that love eating meat. To me, moving to Florida would be like moving into Jurassic Park after the T-Rex got out. It's not worth it.

When you hear them roar and bellow and things, you start wondering, how did people even settle the area and not just freak out about, you know, here I am in my tent for the first time and this thing starts growling in the distance. And you're like, okay, I'm going back to England. You know, I don't know what that is. With that in mind, John says that most of the time alligators want absolutely nothing to do with humans. They're cowards. They'll run away. There are millions of people in this state and probably two million alligators in this state

and it's headline news when somebody gets attacked by an alligator because it happens once every three years. Of course every alligator attack is headline news so they seem more common than they actually are. We've got the same thing in New Zealand but with shark attacks. They're incredibly rare but given so much news coverage during summer you'd think it was a much bigger problem than it actually is. During the 50s alligators almost became extinct thanks to endless hunting. They were on the endangered species list but laying 20 to 50 eggs at a time they recovered quickly. They're quick breeders and John points to some freshly hatched ones in front of me.

Here we have baby American alligators, so that's the hatchlings from last year. Thinking about these guys once nearly becoming extinct, I wondered what the deal is with alligator hunting in 2023. I couldn't like jump in and get an alligator and cook it for dinner without a license. Yes, yeah, you can't feed an alligator in the wild legally, and you can't put hands on one. The people who can legally do that, if it's a nuisance alligator, work for the state, for the Florida Fish and Wildlife.

There's a hunting season that you can put your name in to go hunt a big animal. I remember the gladesman I'd hung out with. He had talked about these nuisance alligators too. The only time you have to worry is when they get like that. When they get that big, that's scary. Those are what I was telling you, they're called nuisance gators. If one grabs you and you try to yank your hand out, the first thing they do, they call it a death roll. They'll bite you and they just automatically start to spin. So the only chance you got if one grabs you is to grab him and just to hold on to him while you're rolling. This alligator farm used to have the ultimate

nuisance alligator, a man eater. It died and now sits stuffed at the park. I go and look and it's quite impressive. Where do you find someone to taxidermy something that size? We went all the way to Colorado, the Jonas Brothers. Not those Jonas Brothers, but a taxidermy company. Looking at the big stuffed beast in front of me, I realize I'm mystified by the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. One of the big differences between alligators and crocodiles is crocodiles can excrete salt out of their system.

And so they get a bigger range because a crocodile could theoretically swim from Cuba to Florida. Alligators and crocodiles start bullying each other when there's a little bit of size difference, and it almost doesn't matter the species. We can keep some alligators and crocodiles together, and as long as they're all about the same size, they do all right. All I really knew about crocs at this point is what I'd gleaned from Lake Placid, the jaws of crocodile movies.

It was worshipped by primitive cultures. It can kill a man with one crushing bite. While not particularly accurate, Lake Placid isn't entirely off, because crocodiles do tend to be more aggro than gators. So yeah, I would say that on average, crocodiles eat bigger things. They're less afraid of us. Crocodile in Africa that eats a zebra isn't going to be afraid of us. We're kind of soft and slow.

So that's about how they get that reputation. But we're in Florida. There are only 2,000 crocs, but over a million alligators. Alligators are what make Florida, Florida. Alligators are smarter than people give them credit for. In fact, every animal in this enclosure knows its name and the keepers can train them for different things. So they may call them over.

They can call an individual animal without having them all come over. You say like Fred and Fred will come to you and the others won't. Exactly. Yeah. Seriously, you're not lying. No, no, no, that's very true. I always tell people, because they're smarter than you think they are,

you're not realizing that they're learning your pattern. So if you move here from Georgia and you are walking your poodle every morning at 7 a.m. down by the lake, the alligator will notice that and he'll be in the middle of the lake and a week later, he'll be at the edge of the lake waiting for you to come by at 7 a.m.

And so they don't miss a trick. They are very aware of their surroundings. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, I don't know about you, Monicaica but i feel like i spend most of my life working i think it's mostly work and i don't think about myself or my mental health very much at all really like work is priority yeah and then friends and other people and then eventually you get to

like mental health yeah which is not a good order it seems probably bad and it's probably why i got literally i got strep throat i've just come through and the doctor did say to me you'll probably just really run down because that's when strep throat gets you yeah and it's probably why I got, literally, I got strep throat. I've just come through it. And the doctor did say to me, you'll probably just really run down because that's when strep throat gets you. And it's probably now thinking about it because of that. Yeah, you're stressed and you need an outlet. I skipped therapy this week and I feel it. You do you? Yeah. Yeah, it's like you felt a bit pent up over there. You felt an energy coming across. Therapy can give you the tools to find more balance in your life. And that's why it's really important. And it will help you in other areas of your life.

If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if you don't like them or they just don't suit you, you can switch at any time for no additional charge, which takes the pressure off. It's easy. It's affordable compared to a lot of options. Also, I really like that it's virtual. I think pandemic taught us that Zoom and virtual meetings

are normal and easy and great. And I think that has made online therapy even easier. Definitely. and easy and great. And I think that has made online therapy even easier. Definitely. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash bird today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash bird. Flightless Bird is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I use this every day. I mix it into a glass of water. I swallow it. And it makes me know that I have the good things I need that I'm missing out on because my diet is so bad. Yeah, if you didn't take AG1, you would be dead.

I think I probably would be. Yeah, yeah. No, my diet is offensive. And mixing this up in water makes me know that I'm doing at least one good thing for myself. Yeah. You take one scoop of AG1 and you're absorbing 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help you start your day right. Plus, it tastes really good. It's not disgusting, which for me is a huge plus. And we were just talking about probiotics. It's important, especially because you've just been on

an antibiotic. Totally. So you really need these pros. Oh, you know, I'm on the AG1. It's like antibiotics apparently wiped out all my gut bacteria. So anything that can help get that back in order is good by me. And also sustainable routines are really key in life. And AG1 is mine. One scoop, one minute, once a day, every day. Right now, it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition. It's just one scoop and a cup of water every day. That's it. No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health.

To make it really easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com slash flightless. That's athleticgreens.com slash flightless. That's athleticgreens.com slash flightless to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. We've arrived at the center of the alligator park, where a big enclosure houses the biggest alligators here. That big guy on the island is probably the biggest one in here. 13 1⁄2 feet.

They start getting even bulkier as they get older. Some of these have come to us because of the nuisance alligator programs. So in some cases, the trappers get to where they find a big nuisance alligator, and he's 12 feet long, and they say, you know, this guy's lived 50 years. I don't want to kill him. Could you guys take him and just give him a life here at the zoo? And so sometimes that's how we get alligators. As I've been talking to John,

I've been getting really distracted by the loud jungle-themed music booming from the speakers all around us. Who's in charge of the Spotify playlists in here? They've got some good drum beats going on right now. This is actually off of an album called Thunder Drums, and it's got some really good stuff in it. It's a good atmosphere. It is.

Thunder Drums. I look up Thunder Drums on Spotify. It's an album from 2012 by Medwin Goodall. Turns out Medwin has released 75 albums since 86, with names like Eye of the Wolf, Tribal Nation, and The Sorcerer's Daughter. It's moody stuff and really sets the scene. I get the feeling John is a bit of a showman. Part of what I like to do here, I came from Walt Disney World, so I kind of have this theming mentality,

but I like it when you can get to an area and say, okay, this is the Chinese alligator, and you're going to hear some Chinese music, and you're going to see some Chinese artwork, and kind of get a feel for, oh, this is a little different atmosphere than where this other thing came from, right? What were you doing at Disney?

I just went to Epcot for the first time. Oh, yeah. I worked there before Animal Kingdom and I worked on a small zoo called Discovery Island. It's a 12-acre island. It's out in the middle of Bay Lake. I know we've been talking about how alligators aren't as dangerous

as they're made out to be, but talking about Disney reminds me of that alligator attack six years ago. A two-year-old child was building a sandcastle on the shore of Disney's Seven Seas Lagoon. He bent over to scoop up some sand in his bucket while his parents watched on. The report by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is heart-wrenching. It clearly states that Matt Graves did everything he could to try to rescue his son Lane from the clutches of an attacking alligator. But the alligator was just too strong. Yeah, that was a bizarre scenario.

It was at night. They were there to see the fireworks. And here you got this young person that's in the water. And at nighttime is when alligators are more likely to be interested in hunting. The problem with small people is that fits into the alligator's size range, right? I mean, they're hunting maybe raccoons and things, and here's this small thing that's bobbing in the water. Not scary for the alligator. At all.

And one of the reasons it's illegal to feed alligators in Florida is they start associating people and food. After the attack, the parents of the boy didn't end up suing, but Disney put up fences and warning signs that still remain. There's no more playing by the lakefront outside the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa. Yeah, that was just such a shock do you remember that monica when that was in the news that was a yeah it was horrifying i took the gondola from one part to the other and looking down you can see it's all fenced off now and just before there was no fence you could just play on this lakefront which seems like a crazy oversight but then i guess it's these things in life that you don't think about until this horrible thing happens, you know?

Especially Disney. I am surprised that they hadn't taken more precautions. They're this huge entity. Completely. Liability-wise. And out the front of a hotel kids are going to play. It is a weird thing, and it got me thinking again, I guess, just about the culture in Florida, how it's just accepted, right? There are a million alligators that live there, and they're just going to be around, and you just need to be careful.

And I think, Rob, you sent me that story recently about the old lady that was grabbed, and she was out walking her dog. And as we just heard, alligators do clock patterns and they are watching and they're not dumb. Their brain is super small. It's pea-sized, but they're not idiots. They do clock patterns. This is a ding, ding, ding to a armchair fact check. I'm kind of surprised they're not on the smartest animals list, sentiananimals.org. Oh, no, I listened to to this list this contentious list yeah

i do like it whenever you talk about lists there was another list you did of i think sports like the most watched sports yeah and that was also just very wild to me it was really really good but they do sound smart but they sound smart in a predatorial psychopath way. A fact that I found really surprising. Apparently there's an alligator in the Keys that responds to 27 different words. And so the trainers will use that obviously to get it to do tricks. But that really surprised me. Can I be honest with you?

For once in your life. Please. It's all I've been waiting for, for years. The first, like, three quarters of that doc, I was thinking about Ben. Ben? Heck. Still. Well.

Oh, my God. We had jumped so quickly from Ben to Alligator. It wasn't a smooth transition. And I just couldn't stop, you know. What were you imagining? I was just thinking about him and I was thinking about the air premiere and I bought these new Jordans and kind of because I got reinvigorated by the air premiere. I'm trying to teach you about the Alligator and you're just thinking about Ben. He's just so handsome

and he's such a good boy, as we established. I'm a big fan of using the imagination, and I'm really glad that you were. I think adults don't use their imagination enough. Kids are always thinking of things, and sometimes adults don't use it. I have this thing, and I used to find it really exciting when I was a kid, and I still do it, where I'll imagine saving someone from like like a gunman or a fire and so something a battle happened and i will zoom into the room i'll usually dive in front of someone did you save someone i offered you an opportunity to save me

from the snake and you were like no i i'm on by it. It's because he loves animals more than humans. So this is human being saved from another human in your fantasy? Yeah, if there's no animals involved, then I will help. If a person comes to attack you, Monica, I will dive in front between the attacker and yourself. You will? I'll think about it. He'll fantasize about it, but he won't do it.

Just stand there imagining it sir what were you doing i was sort of just thinking sort of imagining i went on a date once with this very nice person and we talked about what would happen i think i had just been in a scenario where i was at a restaurant and this unhoused person came in and was acting very erratic. It was a lot. It was a lot. And it was frightening. And it made me spiral.

Like, what do I do? What would I do if something went down? And I was like, I guess I'd just sit there and let myself get killed, let everyone get killed. And I said this to the person and he was like me too and then we kind of just looked at each other we were like we're not a good match you're absolutely both gonna die yeah well there was an incident recently where there was a stabbing in a starbucks and everyone just sat around while this happened no because and it's that bystander effect thing where people are bad at reacting to drama because we just don't know what to do.

I mean, I think you get some paralysis. Oh, absolutely. Oh, it's scary. Someone's getting stabbed. It's scary. But somebody's got to call 911 or jump in. And I guess 911's not that useful. Yeah, it wasn't quick enough.

Everyone just sort of like stood around. it's 911 it's not that useful yeah it wasn't everyone just sort of like stood around but yeah i like to think that my heroic behavior in my mind will one day translate into reality well and most importantly that there are witnesses to see well maybe we can set up some scenarios that are like safe but how will he even know because he won't recognize anyone's face and he might accidentally you might see the stabber, but then attack a different person. There's issues coming into it as well. Actually, that's a good thing to clock.

It's part of it. Well, I'm just saying I'm proud of you imagining. I'm upset that you weren't learning about alligators with me, but it's great to use your imagination. Thank you. And I'm proud of you for that. Thanks. Should we concentrate this time?

Yeah, I'm ready. I've got some facts coming up. There's so much to learn about the humble alligator. Wow, okay. I've seen more alligators today than I've seen in my entire life. And I do get why people pay to see them up close. It's way more exciting than seeing them in a distant ditch or river. And it's nice having a little wall in the way.

What are you feeding these things? So they'll eat any kind of meat that fits in their mouth. We work with Purina and they make us an alligator chow. What Purina? Is that like dog food? It's like their dog, yeah. But they have a subsidiary group that does all zoo food. So they make lion chow and fly chow if you're raising flies and flaming flamingo chow. What? Raising flies? What? If you're raising flies, you've got to feed your chameleon, he needs a fly. So yeah, they're making food for animals that will be food, right? Look, after doing this interview, I tried for about a month to talk to someone at Purina about the food they make for alligators. I was transfixed at the idea of a company making food not just for cats and dogs, but for alligators. I was transfixed at the idea of a company making food not just for cats and dogs, but for alligators. Not only that, but they also make food for flies. Well it turns out

that Nestle, Purina make the dog and cat food, but there's this other company started by the same people called Purina Animal Nutrition and that's now owned by some place called Land O' Lakes that makes alligator food. I emailed, I DMed, I did everything to try and get hold of Land O'Lakes, but no matter how hard I tried, no one would talk to me. So all I really know is what John told me. And one of the cool things about the company was, they said, well, how long does it need to float? And I said, I don't know.

I mean, they feed at the surface probably most of the time. Oh, well, it floats for three and a half minutes now, but we can make it longer if you want. Like, they just have this ability to puff a certain amount of air into it or whatever. And then they say, you know, well, can they see color? Do you want it to be a specific color? You know, they can do anything. The intricacies of alligator food.

Who knew? We've reached another area of the alligator farm, and I notice a lot of Egyptian imagery going on. John explains it by saying the large crocodiles here are Nile crocodiles from Africa. So they built this exhibit with Egypt in mind, the country linking Northeast Africa with the Middle East. This whole thing actually was kind of my childhood. I really was fascinated by Egypt and all things King Tut,

and my favorite movie is Raiders of the Lost Ark. So I built out the Ark. Built a life-size Ark. So we've got snakes on display guarding the Ark of the Covenant. You're in heaven here, right? Yeah, right. I realized that the director of the alligator farm is just a big nerd. And this is his playground.

The Ark of the Covenant there. I built that in my living room. My mom and dad were not surprised at all, but I think my wife was really like, okay, when is this leaving the house, right? I've actually seen every indie movie with my parents, but now my wife is getting involved in it. She's having to deal with all my nerdism. I ask how long it took to finish this Ark of the Covenant that's now proudly on display. He says it took about three months of work at nights and on the weekends. And your marriage lasted? Yeah, absolutely.

She dresses up as my Marian for Halloween. While I've been in this Nile area, I've been peering down at the two Nile crocodiles and their enclosure. Something about them has been banging around in the back of my head. Something troubling me. Then I remembered a news report from about four years ago. It all snapped into place. That bizarre incident happened here. It wouldn't be a true episode about Florida without concluding with a tale from the Florida man genre. I was afraid that John wouldn't want a true episode about Florida without concluding with a tale from the Florida man genre.

I was afraid that John wouldn't want to talk about it, but I forget I'm in America where people love talking about everything. It's a gentleman who was on some sort of drugs. The police said it was something called bath salts. I don't know anything about it except that it seems to make them overheat. Like it was very hot. So he broke in at night and did a whole bunch of damage. He just vandalized the place. So when I got here, I was just finding broken signs and broken lights.

And so I called the police and said, we had a break-in. Seems like everything's all right. But then I found a pair of Crocs, the shoes, floating in that Nile crocodile exhibit we were just looking at. And I said, well, that's weird. And then a pair of shorts next to that. And then some blood on the boardwalk. I said, oh, that's a nightmare. It's not good. So the police knock on the door. I go in the door. I said, Gus, it's a little worse than I thought. And he says, no, we got the guy. And I said,

what do you mean? I haven't even told you what happened. He said, no, we got the guy. And I said, what do you mean? I haven't even told you what happened. He said, no, we got the guy. It's all right. Everything's all right. And he was found half naked, crawling through somebody's backyard. So this woman calls the police and this guy and the police said, what's happened to you? And he said, I was being held captive. And the person who was holding me captive had alligators all around me. I couldn't get out. And they said, were you at the alligator farm? And he said, oh, no, sir. I was nowhere near there. So we start looking through our security footage.

And what happened? He couldn't walk a straight line. He was very stoned, but he could climb anything. He climbed over barbed wire to get into the park. And then he climbed over these fences. And it really did look like he thought he was captive and trying to sneak out like he's crawling along holding his hands on walls and stuff but he climbed up on the roof of that right above the ark of the covenant where we

just were and leapt in with those two nile crocodiles and they grabbed him of course rolled him around and he managed to crawl out. He's incredibly lucky if they were grabbing and rolling. Dreamly lucky. And so they brought him to the hospital. He snuck out of the hospital that day, still stoned out of his mind. They found him behind an Outback Steakhouse somewhere. They bring him back, do a surgery on his foot, and the doctor said he was still stoned three days later.

One amazing detail from that story is that the man was wearing Crocs at the time. So part of the police evidence was a photo of a pair of Crocs sitting discarded next to a pair of actual Crocs. The man was lucky to be alive. He went to prison, while the Nile crocodiles remained here at the alligator farm. I'm looking at them right now.

I decide not to get in. Isn't that remarkable, Monica? That really made me laugh. Oh, it's incredible. So on brand. So perfect. Synthetic cathinones, more commonly known as basalts, human-made stimulants chemically related to cathinone,

a substance found in the cart plant. This is news to me. I thought bath salts were bath salts. So did I. That's what I assumed. Yeah. Oh, right. You know, they're not.

I think maybe some people tried to use them for the same effect, similar chemicals, but they're not bath salts. It's not like you can go to Whole Foods, buy bath salts. People were trying. But yeah, the stuff this guy was on was really intense shit. We had this rumor go around New Zealand, which I think you had in America as well, about this other drug you could get high from called Gencom. Rob knows.

What is it? Gencom was a rumor that got out of control but to the point where people started trying it where you essentially um ferment your own feces in a bag in a bucket and you like leave it out in the sun and then you suck the fumes out of it no yeah that rumor was traveling around a very similar time to bath salts Because people are like, oh my god, you can get high off bath salts from the market Let's do Jinkum It seems like someone who was on bath salts came up with this idea I think a bunch of news places reported on it And parents were freaking out about their kids doing Jinkum

Yeah, it was this panic, absolutely And none of it was real, no one was ever inhaling any kind of fumes from their own feces. Wow. All bullshit. And of course, once the news reports came out, that's when people actually started trying it. Of course. Because they were like, oh my God, I can get high. Wow.

Wow. Wow. A couple of other Florida Man headlines recently that I like. Florida Man caught on camera pooping in bushes outside Naples Cleaning Company. Oh, boy. And Florida Man arrested for assaulting wife with chicken wings. Oh. Have you played the Florida Man game?

No. You just put your birthday in Google and then Florida Man. Oh. And then you get your headline. Oh, that's fun. Let's do it. So what, December 25? I'm going to do. Oh, yours is going to be fun.

It might be Christmas themed. Oh, this is unpleasant. There's a handful. Florida man with drugs around penis denies they were his. That's actually my number one hit. That's good. June 20th, Florida man. Florida man pulls gun at Starbucks over cream cheese.

Oh, my God. August 24th. Another drugged out Florida man gets naked and bites a chunk of human flesh oh this is very you monica florida man punches elderly victim for holding up the line that is me oh that's really really special that's great that's fun that's a fun. There is a piece that I found really interesting. It was from the Miami New Times explaining why Florida Man is a thing. Okay. And it's this huge gag. There's a Florida Man Twitter account, which is just the headlines. But this article kind of explains why it's a thing, and it's actually a positive. One of the things that may be contributing to Florida being shamed so often in the national media is something all Floridians should actually be proud of. Since 1909, Florida has a proud tradition that all government business is public business

and therefore should be available to the public. So all records, including photos and videos, anything produced by a public agency, open to the public. Right. So yeah, every time a mugshot appears online, that's because the laws make it really easy for journalists to write about all the weird Florida news stories stories yeah that is good they have open records yeah it's called the sunshine law yeah the sunshine act yeah the government in the sunshine act is sort of the informal name and that's a really positive thing so you can call the police and they'll be very

open about things as opposed to any other state that are much more cagey yes okay so the curse is that we all think florida is full of freaks people move to florida because it's hot and it's easy and i think it's a good place to retire it's a good place so it does attract a certain sort of brain right so there's an element of that but also it's just uneven in how much is reported yeah every state has their version of the florida. But yeah, they're just harder. We just don't hear about it. So to Florida's credit, it's actually a really good thing that they do. That's true.

And that's why we're all laughing at it. We clap for you, Florida. And I think Florida laughs at itself. Last fact, if you do get attacked, apparently you're meant to sort of grapple them, legs around them, arms around them. Okay. So you roll with them. If you sort of try and punch them where your hand sort of goes in the mouth then you're completely fucked you've got to like like the

crocodile hunter used to do in australia like just really wrestle but then what i'm not saying you should like try to sit out to do it right because alligator wrestling used to be a thing they would do it as entertainment they don't do it anymore in public but that used to be a thing so if you get your arm your body around and it's rolling you just roll with it and then hopefully sort of it let go and you sort of tire it out i mean you'll probably be drowned before that help will come maybe but yeah you don't want to be you want to be away from the mouth end like the squirrel you want to be away from the bitey end and at the the tail end that's what you ideally want so there's some advice you learn something every day don't you this podcast sure do oh we learned so much okay well that was great thank you the

part i heard was great thank you am i more american the or less? I think you're more. Thank you. Cumulatively, what am I now? Well, we, okay, some BTS. You lied to us completely. The egg episode is bullshit. Basically. The controversy goes on. There's so many people who commented from New Zealand who said that you do refrigerate your eggs there.

And that what are you talking about? And we decided that that made you very American, that in order to prove a point, you'll just say all kinds of bullshit. Just invented some bullshit. Yep. So you're getting up there. Yeah, and I think my text reaction to both of you was, I'm going to get my lawyer on you if you defame me in this way

by calling me dishonest. You're suing. You're lying. Yeah, it turns out maybe the Farrier family was more of a pantry kind of an outfit. And that makes sense because you guys were very animal heavy. We were animal heavy. We were.

So this makes sense. Yeah. All right. I'd say 50% American. 40, 30, 20. You're in the 40 range. Yes. Okay. We have a ways to go though. Thanks, Monica. Bye. Thanks, Rob.