Food Feature: Gator Bait

Feed on fun at St. Augustine Alligator Farm

One of the giant spectacles at St. Augustine Alligator Farm is Gomek. Housed in a tiki hut where tribal drums play over speakers, Gomek, once the world’s largest crocodile in captivity, is now immortalized in full attack pose through the miracle of taxidermy. Captured in New Guinea years ago, Gomek was almost 18 feet long and weighed nearly a ton when he died in 1997 of a heart attack at an estimated 80 years old. I’ve been told that the stuffed Gomek is not nearly as impressive as the live one, but the exhibit gives you a chance to get up-close and appreciate his monstrosity.

But there are many other opportunities for up-close gator and croc encounters. Outside the tiki hut, we were just in time for the grand spectacle. We found an opening in the crowd gathered around the large pit and stared at the dozens of massive black forms lying stock still on the grass or floating silently in the murky brown water. Only the tops of their knobby heads or a few spiny ridges of their backs and tails were visible.

A park employee walked out onto a platform over the pit and welcomed everyone. Slowly, the pit came to life as the gators responded to the voice over the loudspeaker, salivating like Pavlov’s reptiles.

There is something chilling about gators, the primordial beasts and perfect killers, which evolution has found unnecessary to change in millions of years. And the large crowd lining the main pit was quieter than you would expect. The feeder instructed parents with kids on their shoulders to take them down, since a jostle from the crowd might cause a spectacle that no one came to see. Plus, he said, “When a kid falls in the pit, the paperwork involved is ridiculous.”

The feeder pulled a chunk of raw meat from a barrel and waved it around. Alligators don’t have good eyesight, but have a keen sense of smell. As the feeder tossed the meat to the beasts, it bounced off their noses and heads. With a quick twist and a clamp of jaws, the meat disappeared.

The gators are fed nutria, the large rodents that have invaded the swamps of Louisiana and made a nuisance of themselves. For big pieces, the gators raise their heads and chomp, the meat flipping in their jaws until it can fit down their gullets. For the grand finale, the feeder pulled out a nearly complete skinned nutria by the tail and tossed it. The lucky recipient clamped down on the meat and then let it sit in his mouth, while the tail hung out the side and blood oozed onto the ground. Totally gnarly. And totally worth the trip.

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