Reader's advisory: Wired News has been unable to confirm some sources for a number of stories written by this author. If you have any information about sources cited in this article, please send an e-mail to sourceinfo[AT]wired.com.
ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida -- Ever stand by the side of some zoo's alligator pool, hoping that the animals would do something more than occasionally blink?
Well, as it turns out, sparking a response from a lounging alligator is easy -- if you happen to know the secret sound or the alligator's name.
Standing in front of a pond that houses at least a dozen alligators, St. Augustine Alligator Farm curator John Brueggen pointed out one particularly large male who appeared to be in a deep sun-induced coma.
"Harry! Come here, Harry," called Brueggen softly.
The 13-foot, 500-pound gator instantly opened his eyes and quickly waddled over to Brueggen. The rest of the alligators didn't even blink. And why should they? They're not Harry.
Harry is one of the hundreds of alligators and crocodiles housed at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. In continuous operation for over a century, the farm is home to all 23 species of crocodilians -- a group that includes crocodiles, alligators, caimans and rarely seen gavials.
In many ways, the Alligator Farm has remained much as it was a century ago, a classic low-tech tourist attraction, said Brueggen. But behind the scenes the farm is increasingly relying on technology to ensure the survival of endangered species -- of the 23 species of crocodilians, 18 are on the federal Endangered Species Act (PDF) list.
Breeding captive animals is far more complicated than simply tossing two creatures together and letting nature take its course, according to Brueggen.
The Alligator Farm is accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, an affiliation of animal-care facilities that work together to ensure the health and genetic diversity of captive species.
Each AZA zoo reports regularly on the age and health status of each member of a protected or endangered species residing in that facility. The information is collated, and the zoos then receive e-mailed recommendations of what species should be bred and how often.
"We'll get a message asking us to breed, for example, Siamese crocodiles," explained Brueggen. "In our case that message may be very specific, requesting we incubate two dozen females and one dozen males from the breeding. We can easily manage this, as crocodile and alligator eggs develop their sexual characteristics dependent on the temperatures the eggs are exposed to."
AZA-accredited zoos often lend each other animals for breeding purposes in the interests of genetic diversity. To maintain this diversity, it's important to keep careful records of the animals' family trees. An alligator living in a California zoo may well be closely related to one living in a facility in Canada.
So the Alligator Farm, like other AZA-accredited zoos, maintains a computerized "stud book" to record the pedigree of each resident reptile. These records ensure that there won't be any unwitting incestuous behavior among animals paired for breeding.
Each alligator and crocodile in the Alligator Farm's collection is identified by an embedded microchip and a toe tag bearing its individual ID number.
"The toe tags are easier for us to work with on a daily basis; we can read them from a distance with a pair of binoculars," explained Brueggen. "But we need a microchip reader and close contact with the animal to read the embedded chips.
"Thing is, there's always the chance that one animal could bite off a couple of toes from another animal. So the microchips that are embedded under their skin are far more durable and permanent."
The Alligator Farm also contributes to the San Diego Zoo's Frozen Zoo project, more formally known as the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species. The Frozen Zoo keeps preserved genetic samples of animals and reptiles for researchers to study.
Blood samples and tissue clippings from most of the Alligator Farm's animals make up part of the Frozen Zoo's collection of 6,000 individual samples stored at minus 320 degrees in liquid nitrogen tanks.
The samples may be used for cloning someday, according to Brueggen, but for now the focus is to develop a genetic library that allows researchers to study species characteristics.
Samples from Alligator Farm residents are collected only when the animals have to be captured for another reason, such as breeding or moving to another environment.
Since some of the animals, like Harry, respond readily to their names and virtually all will respond to specific sound cues, capturing them is usually fairly stress-free for both the reptile and its handlers.
Brueggen demonstrated how a pack of gators can be shifted by making a call that sounds something like "puck puck" (sorry, the real sound has to be kept secret to avoid visitors causing stampeding chaos at zoos across the country).
He puck-pucked at a gang of several dozen sleeping gators, and the entire tribe simultaneously woke up and scrambled over to him.
"Getting a bunch of them to move at once allows us to enter an enclosure to work with a sick or new animal," explained Brueggen.
"For example, when we get alligators here from northern zoos the animals tend to be yellow and greenish brown, instead of the suntanned black of Florida gators. The yellow alligators really confuse the other ones, and they tend to cluster around the newcomer to stare, which sometimes freaks the new animal out. Sometimes we need to isolate the new one until he gets his tan."
Brueggen recently made a discovery about alligator social life that refutes accepted scientific knowledge on American alligators' parenting skills.
"It's a standard belief that male alligators will eat their young if given the opportunity, and so in captivity it's imperative to immediately separate the mom and babies from the father after birth," explained Brueggen.
"But three years ago I had an overabundance of young alligators, so I left some babies in with their mother and father. I was curious to see what would happen."
What happened was the big male gator became a big mush as soon as he saw his babies. He not only didn't attempt to consume his young, but actively cared for them and has often been spotted with several baby gators snoozing in his wide-open mouth while he relaxes in the sun.
This is especially unusual, because alligators have a natural reflex to snap down hard whenever anything enters their mouths. Evidently parental concerns trumped that reflex, at least in this alligator's case.
"People assume that these animals are mindless killing machines," said Brueggen. "They certainly can be aggressive, but they aren't monsters.
"Occasionally they even border on being kind of sweet, so long as you remember they can kill you with a single chomp."
