Hard Truths of Conservation (2022) s01e07 Episode Script

1
(mid tempo music)
(animals chattering)
- Gators have been around
for millions of years
in the Everglades
as an apex predator
in the ecosystem.
But man almost drove them
to extinction at one point
before utilization
of the species
brought them back
from the brink.
Hunting has become a
controversial practice
in modern times.
My name is Dan Cabela and
I’m traveling the globe
to explore the true impact
that hunting is having
on our remaining
wild landscapes.
This practice goes as far back
as human history can remember
but does it have a place
in modern conservation?
(eerie music)
(mid tempo string music)
(birds chirping)
The Everglades in Florida
is filled with marshes
and holds a paradise
of biodiversity
with a plethora of wildlife.
Alligators currently
thrive in the Everglades
and are considered to
be a keystone species.
Populations have
become quite stable
because of sustainable
utilization
and economic incentives
that exist in the farming
and ranching industry.
Dwindling populations
of alligators
were the result of unregulated
hunting and habitat loss.
They were listed as an
endangered species in 1967.
The number of alligators
began to rebound
when alligator
farms were opened.
Populations have since
improved considerably
and alligators were removed
from the endangered species list
in 1987
and thrive in Florida today.
Sustainable use of alligators
in the United States
generates more than
$70,000,000 annually
at the product level,
providing substantial incentive
for the public to retain
habitat and tolerate alligators.
(mid tempo music)
I’ve decided to take a deeper
look into this recovery
by visiting the heart of
the industry in Florida.
While not commonly thought
of as ranching land,
I’m heading to the Kempfer Ranch
to take a look at the
conservation model
that has brought the
alligator back from the brink
to historic numbers.
The Kempfer Ranch is
primarily a cattle ranch
- [Hoppy] How are
you, I’m Hoppy.
- Nice to meet you, I’m Dan.
- Dan, pleasure to meet you.
- Excited to see what
you guys are doing here.
- Well, it’s gonna
probably be exciting.
So we’re gonna go collect
some alligator eggs
and you’re gonna need to
get some long pants on.
I hope you brought some.
- I did, I did bring some.
- Okay, need some.
- Let me get changed
up and I’ll meet you.
- Change, come on to
cabins right there.
Make yourself at home, get
your stuff and get ready,
and let’s go.
- Sounds good.
- All right, buddy.
- The wetlands of Kempfer
Ranch have been preserved
and kept in a natural state
because of income generated
through the utilization
of the American alligator.
The situation is
similar on many ranches
throughout the state of Florida.
Modern alligator management
primarily includes farming,
harvesting and hatching eggs
for the ranching industry,
and controlled hunting on
both public and private lands.
(mid tempo rock music)
- Hoppy is taking
me into the swamps
for their annual egg collection.
The best way to navigate
this habitat is by airboat
and we’ll be searching for nests
with the help of a biologist.
Harvesting alligator eggs
helps to stabilize
wild alligator numbers.
Biologists have
calculated the number
of nests that can be harvested
while sustaining
healthy populations.
Alligator farms buy the eggs
to raise alligators to
harvest their hides.
The helicopter is often
used to help locate nests
and the biologist communicates
with Hoppy via radio.
A nest has been spotted nearby
and we’re on our way there.
- They’re gonna land
the chopper right here.
- Funds gained by
the sale of eggs
on private and public lands
help to keep habitats intact
and alligator numbers
at stable levels.
- [Hoppy] So Dan, this is the
guy that we’ve been talking to
on the radio all morning.
This is Steve Shea.
- Nice to finally meet you.
- Yeah, I’ve heard
a lot about you.
Glad to meet you.
- Hey buddy.
- How’s it going?
- It’s our wildlife biologist
and certified gator biologist.
So he’s gonna certify
this as a nest over here.
- Yeah.
One of the things that the
state agency has required
is all alligator egg collections
need to be overseen
by a certified
wildlife biologist.
The reason they do that
is to ensure that
the harvest process
is done in a ecologically
and biologically safe way
to be able to sustain
those alligator populations
on private lands forever,
and that’s why I’m
involved here today.
On an alligator nest, you’ll
see what we call a tail drag.
You’ll see this mark
where the female actually
crawls up on top of the nest.
She does that lots
of times at night
to try to protect the
nest from predators.
She’ll scratch up all the
vegetation into a pile,
it’s almost like a compost
pile, it acts the same way.
And as it decomposes, that
vegetation decomposes,
- [Steve] There they are.
- [Dan] Gotta go deep
on some of these.
- A typical alligator nest
has 25 to 50 eggs in it,
the average probably
in the low to mid 30s.
When the embryo starts to form,
it attaches on the
top side of the egg.
And when you’re
collecting the eggs,
you have to make sure that
that surface on the top
always stays up.
And the reason you do
that is if the egg rolled,
the embryo could detach
from the eggshell
and it will kill it immediately.
So we take great care to
make sure that those eggs,
the top side always stays up.
(soft music)
- Great care is taken
to keep eggs in their
harvested position.
A final process is
called candling.
- The reason they
use the word candling
is back before they had lights,
they actually used fire
to actually candle eggs.
But you can see use
of the flashlight,
if you hold it to the egg
you can see that dark
middle portion of the egg,
that shows that there’s an
embryo in there and it’s live.
See this egg?
This is a classic egg that
has been not fertilized.
So it’s an infertile egg.
So this egg we would not keep
because we know that there
will not be a live embryo
growing in it.
So what we’ll do is we
will basically remove that
from the clutch.
All right, Dan, we’ve
collected over 50 nests already
from the property.
We have two more that
are really remote nests
back in the big cypress swamp,
and we’ll basically walk
through that cypress head
to those remaining nests
to collect those eggs.
(mid tempo music)
In the cypress drains, the
water fluctuation is tremendous.
During the storm season,
when we have hurricanes,
we’ll have big rainfall events,
15 to 20 inches of rain
and the the creek systems
will elevate rapidly.
So alligators like this
try to build a nest
on as high a ground as they can.
They do this as a strategy
to ensure the survival of the
eggs during high-water events.
There’s a lot of
predators in Florida
that love to eat alligator eggs.
Raccoons are one of
the biggest predators.
Feral hogs also love
to eat alligator eggs.
And a lot of people
don’t realize this
but river otters,
they really love to eat
alligator eggs as well.
(thunder rumbling)
As you can tell by that thunder,
Florida’s rainy
season is upon us.
So we’re gonna try to get
these eggs out of here
before the rain starts.
(mid tempo music)
- Only about 2% of
nested eggs in the wild
survive after hatching.
In farms,
alligator eggs have a better
than 95% survival rate.
- [Steve] Alligator farms
is a relatively large
business in Florida
and the alligators are
raised in captivity.
And then, when
they’re harvested,
the meat is sold to markets
and the hides are processed
and tanned for creating
leather products.
- [Dan] My next
stop is Gatorama,
a commercial farm that
purchases alligator eggs.
It was initially founded in 1957
as a local tourism attraction.
- I’m Allen.
- How are you?
- Good, good.
- [Dan] Allen and Patty
Register are the current owners
and they are in the midst of
distributing eggs to buyers.
- We’re about six days into
our collection right now
so we retain 23,000,
little over 23,000 eggs.
And so they all come,
we have a courier that comes
to each of the locations,
the south crew and
the north crew,
and then they bring
’em to Gatorama.
We have a temporary storage
here, so we put ’em in there
and then once a week
we’ll do the distribution.
This year we’re having
a a banner year.
We had a banner year last year,
but this year seems to
be better than last year.
And I think it’s because
of the lack of rain
and everything’s dry,
nothing’s getting flooded out.
Last year we retained
over 51,000 eggs
which was the best
year we’ve ever had.
- This booming trade is
incentivizing the protection
of healthy alligator populations
on private lands
across the country.
(mid tempo music)
Another form of conservation
that has helped to
bring the alligator
back to stable
numbers is tourism.
I spent some time at Gatorama
to take a look at
the tourism side
of alligator conservation.
Tourism is also
an effective tool
in creating awareness
of a species
that’s been around for a lot
longer than human beings have.
This awareness leads to greater
tolerance for alligators.
Allen’s son Ben is
giving me the chance
to feed some alligators.
- Let’s see if we can
get Jimmy up here.
Jimmy, let’s go big guy.
Come on!
Jimmy, where are you?
All right, there’s
Jimmy right there.
Jimmy, come on.
Jump.
Here you go.
Oh, so close!
So close.
Try it again.
Yeah!
Give me five.
We did it woo!
All right, give him a
round of applause, woo.
(tourists clapping)
- [Dan] Gator viewing
is popular at Gatorama
and for many tourists,
nothing tops seeing a gator
and all of their mystique
in this type of setting.
(mid tempo music)
- We actually have a
pretty cool alligator
we let the guests hold here
and we can let you
hold it if you want to.
- [Dan] No, I’d love to.
- All right, I’ll let you
tape his mouth shut too.
- Okay.
- We use actually vet
wrap, we don’t use tape.
The tape will actually
stick to the animal
and it could hurt it.
So with the vet wrap,
it secures their mouth
but it doesn’t hurt the animal.
So if you wanna hold him,
just grab him by the tail,
front legs,
hold him level, just like that.
There you go.
- And so you call this
a pied?
- Pied alligator.
It’s basically a
genetic mutation.
I’m not really into all
the genetics and stuff.
I’ve heard there’s about
12 of these alligators
in the entire world.
I’ve only seen two
that look like this.
Most of the time they’ll
look like a regular alligator
and just have like one little
white spot on their foot.
So it’s kind of neat
just to have one that’s
totally different colors
and you can actually
see how strong he is
when they start to move,
even though they’re that
small, it’s like whoa.
So you got your hands
on a little one.
You wanna go get
face-to-face with a big one?
- That’d be awesome.
Do I hold it just like this?
- You can try.
(both laughing)
Come on.
Good boy.
Come on, come on.
Good boy.
So this is old timer.
He’s been here since 1957.
He’s one of the original
alligators that we have here.
We don’t really
know how old he is.
We know he’s been here since
1957, so that’s what, 66 years?
He was probably 10
feet back that time
so you had another
20 years of that.
You know, he might be over 100.
Stay outside of his
sweeping motion.
You gotta imagine
if he were to turn,
you know, his head’s
gonna come right here
but he’s not gonna
move super fast.
So if you wanna come
on behind this way
then you can just kind
of like kneel down
and place your arm around him.
Hold, hold.
Good boy.
All right, don’t go anywhere.
- It’s not every day
you get to put your hand
on an animal that’s been on
Earth longer than humans.
I’d say this is a pretty
amazing experience.
(mid tempo music)
As communities and development
have encroached into
alligator habitat,
the need for nuisance
alligator control
has become more prevalent.
By utilizing hunting and
other sustainable-use methods,
it helps to keep alligators
at manageable levels.
It’s a tremendous industry.
So what happens if
you take these animals
and they become
valuable to hunters?
Then the hunters are doing,
and the outfitters like myself,
are doing things to protect them
and to make the herd
healthy so they thrive,
you know, so that it’s
a sustainable resource.
All hunters are
harvesting adult males.
And so if all you’re doing
is harvesting adult males
you have literally zero
effect on population numbers
’cause their females
are not being harvested
and they’re still being
bred by the younger males.
So, you know, you’re not
interrupting anything.
- [Dan] The hunting of gators
is a massive source of
income for landowners
and often necessary for the
control of nuisance individuals
near populated areas.
(mid tempo music)
- [Jamey] Just put it
right behind his eyes
and slowly squeeze.
That’s your boy right there.
(gun firing)
(mid tempo music)
- Pull tight.
- More?
You grab the rope
and help me pull.
How’s that look?
(uplifting music)
- [Dan] In combination with
the harvesting of eggs,
the sustainable use of gators
helps to keep their
populations in check
and manage human
wildlife conflict
that occurs as human
needs for land increase.
Both of these methods
give the species value
and form the basis of a
sustainable conservation model.
(mid tempo music)
Nothing goes to waste here
after a successful hunt.
I am invited to join the guide
and other Silver Lake
Preserve staff for a meal.
- This is gator bites.
Nice white meat.
There’s dark meat
and light meat,
and the light meat
tends to be more tender.
Please try some.
- It looked like a bird to me
because the front of
it to me looked dark
and it looked like there were
white tail feathers on it.
It has been an
enlightening journey
into the truth behind the
recovery of gator populations
in the United States.
(soft music)
- Like many ecosystems,
the Everglades are delicate
and the financial model
surrounding alligators
has given landowners
the perfect incentive
to preserve large
tracks of this habitat.
The commercial industry
has created value
and with strict regulations
and good management,
the species is thriving
in Florida as a result.
It is the uncontrolled
misuse of alligators
that brought the species
to the brink of extinction,
yet the controlled use of
them has brought them back.
Alligators are an
excellent example
of a species that has
funded its own conservation,
to the point that it’s gone
from threatened to prolific.
(dramatic music)