The baby alligator in my hands is only 4 months old. At this age, they are nothing but sweet. The baby alligator is called a ‘grunt’. Yellow stripes distinguish these from older young alligators.
The gender is not yet certain so I’ll call it and ‘it’ rather than genderize it. When Sean Mallee, the DaggerWing Nature Center Naturalist, scooped it out of the tank, it was moving quickly and squiggly in my hand. Sean told me how to hold it which was to support its bottom down to its tail. In a few months, it will not be as easy to hold with one hand. Alligator babies grow in strength exponentially to their age. In a few months’ time, the tork on its bite will be enough to remove a human finger. That’s why they need to get used to having the band around its snout. They do not ‘gentle’ up with handling by humans. They are either born gentler or not. And even the gentle ones will bite your hand off if you are feeding it. And maybe gently pull you into the water to eat you later…with gentle munching sounds beneath the canal’s tannin waters.
This grunt is not likely to remember the love I gushed over it. Alligators are instinct driven. But there are curiously mammalian qualities in the Mother alligator. She seems to love her babies. The mother alligator is one of the most doting and caring of mother creatures. She protects her grunts even after a year after they have been hatched. Photos of the babies riding on her head or in her open mouth are plentiful. These babies are vulnerable to predators such as wading birds, other alligators, raccoons, turtles and the host of marshland creatures. Feeling the grunt’s skin confirmed how soft they are at this time. Their bony back plates have not grown yet.
The grunt I’m playing with has been removed from his nest and will live out his/her life in protective wildlife sanctuaries.