Really now, really, really.
Now, really Hello and welcome to Really Know Really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who invite you to subscribe and allow us to be your emotional support podcast.
Really.
Speaking of emotional.
Support, have you heard about Wally, the five foot long, sixty pound emotional support alligator. Wally's owner sleeps with him, walks him on a leash, and even hosts children's pool parties featuring the allegedly docile reptile. Really, with their inhuman eyes, prehistoric looks, razor sharp teeth, and propensity to eat small dogs and occasionally their full sized owners. Most of us have concluded that alligators are mindless, aggressive killing machines, but today's guest says we're wrong.
Really.
Recent studies indicate that reptiles may have the capacity to feel emotions such as anxiety and even pleasure, and today's guests, Paul Bedard, one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to understanding the psyche of wild alligators, explains to the guys how humans can train and interact with alligators in a safe and even playful way. Really, no, really, now, now here's two guys who wouldn't turn down emotional support, even if it did come from a mindless killing machine.
Jason and Peter, here we go. Or you're exciting left, that's what's gonna be. This is what's gonna be one. I'm excited. I'm really excited.
This is this is one that you got excited about that you stumbled on, well, okay, on to this topic. So and you you really this this this kind of took a deep bite on you, didn't it.
I went down. I went down an alligator hall. So let me say what happened. I see a story that's been on a lot of channels, a lot of places, I think CBS Sunday Morning about Wally, this emotional support alligator. And in Pennsylvania, this gentleman who's rescued reptiles and loves reptiles, rescued Wally, who I think is now like six pounds and five feet long and carries them like a baby, walks him on a leash, sleeps next to them in
the bed. And I'm looking going and and while he is his emotional support, legally his emotional support, alligator puts his hand in his mouth, shows he will never bite, never bite.
Right to see him scratching the alligator's tongue right, which would make any other alligator snap.
You would bite If I scratch your tongue right now, you'd bite. How do you not bite? So he's really and and but maybe I get alligators wrong because they're prehistoric looking. It's not a cute animal they are. He's just looking. They've been around since. But then because I'm researching this, I get pushed out this guy Paul Medard, who works at a place in Florida that's a reptile that does a reptile show. He was also on a
show called Gator Boys. And he's there with alligators that decide to will win a bago on his chest, kissing them, carrying them, plugging them around, lying down with him, and they're not biting. And I'm looking at this going he So I want to talk to because we can ask him if the others alligator are going to buy because he's around alligators all the time. This is his wife. So we got paulmod Ard on with us, who catches and rescues alligators that have been deemed a threat to people, pets,
are livestock. He was in Gator Boys and he runs the Gator Boys Alligator Rescue Sanctuary, which is in the Everglades Holiday Park. And I became obsessed with you, Paul, because it started out with the story of Wally, the emotional support alligator. I'm watching the guy with that in Pennsylvania, my home state, whatever, and I'm watching he's doing stuff with the gator, and I'm going, this thing is going to want of this day. It's going to end badly.
It's sleeping with the gator. He's doing a whole bit, and then he's taking it into a pool and it's swimming with kids, and I'm going, oh my gosh. And then it pushes out because I'm doing research you and you're sitting there with Casper, who's the size of a Winner bag, and he's got his head on your lap. And I've now watched i think every video you have ever.
I'm so obsessed with you that it's amazing, and I the takeaway sort of jumping to the end, but I think it's important how misunderstood I was as far as gats and how they react and what they are. So thank you for coming on number one. But it's amazing what you do. So tell us a little about I knew Gator Boys is on for a couple of years. Will you rescue these things?
I think it's six seasons on animal plans.
Oh wow. So how did you get involved with reptiles and specifically gators that you decided this is what you want to do.
It just happened. It wasn't like I mean, I always loved alligators and sharks and stuff, but I grew up in New England and then when I was out of college,
I was racing triathlons, like pretty seriously. So I would just couchsurf up and down the East Coast and take any job at any random bike shop or a zoo that was dumb enough to hire me because I was leaving in three months when the weather changed, and I started working at a small zoo in Hollywood on the Native Seminole reservation, and I just asked one day where do you get your gators from? And they were like, oh, we just go grab out of the swamp because we're
on seminal property, the big Cypress. And I said, well, I should buy him off the trappers they're going to kill him. They're like, you want to wats three hundred bucks in the gator? Go for it, we get them for free, so almost approve a point. I went and bought an alligator, and then the trapper eventually said, hey, if you want to save alligators, mother Teresa, but I'm too busy. When I'm too busy, you can feel free to catch the gators that i'm You have too many
to catch, and whatever you catch is yours. And then my life pretty much ended.
So how much experience? So when you're going to catch gators, your young guy, how much expertise did you have on their behaviors so that you wouldn't get eaten or killed?
Well, I was really lucky as a young man. There's a guy named Many Quig that a lot of this people these days don't recognize. He's the best animal guy that's ever walked the planet. Like it's not even close to No one ever rode a shark until Many did it. No one ever went diving in the water with alligators until Many did it. And then like eighteen or twenty years old, he had me diving in the Everglades with wild alligators and I was like, we're going to die.
This is the craziest thing ever. And he would go down and lesitate. This twelve foot behemoth off the bottom, and I just was blown away. I couldn't even imagine you could get away with that stuff.
And that's an alligator that he had had no experience with, so it's not something that he had built any kind of rapport with.
Right now, what?
Okay? How?
Why?
Why?
Is?
Why would they not naturally be fearful of him or feel that they were threatened in somebody?
You're the smartest guy I've talked to in a long time, because you said fearful, which is exactly the case. Everybody says they want to eat you. Pretators in general want to eat something smaller. They want to risk being the meal themselves, so they want to go after something like a gator eight foot gator, typically raccoon, possum, fish, bird, something like that. They go after something my size. You could end up with a panther that eats you. So they generally don't want to eat us on the land.
It's why you walk up on the golf course. They jump in the water and take off like they stole something. But in the water, I get attacked all the time because I go in the water to catch these guys and they be lined for me. Which is great because that's how I catch them. I go in the water, splash around, I put the noose up, they swimmer into it. Now we had a gator and a leash.
No misjudge. I totally get what he's saying. I would feel so lucky swimming right towards my news. I go, good day, What a great day.
Yeah, just don't just don't miss the noose.
That's what I'm saying. If you miss caveats, of course, right and.
Again, it happens. It does happen all the time. I'll get in the water, gat will be line for me. I wait, there's a video on my Instagram where I just picked the noose up. He swims right into it. And now we got a gator in a leash. And if you're not looking, and I've had that happen before where I was like, turned my there's a video. I haven't released it yet, but I'm pulling. I swam down noose to nine foot alligator. And where I caught him, I couldn't get him out of the water, too many
trees around. So I was gonna swim to the boat ramp, which is like two three hundred yards. So as I'm dragging him along. He's like bouncing over stuff, and he gets stuck under a ledge, and all of a sudden, I heard there was two gaters there, and I saw a little supposed to be a nine foot and a six footer. So I see a gat way off in the distance, but I'm like, he's just sitting there. He's
a little six footer. Probably we're fine. And I get close and all of a sudden, this guy stuck under a ledge, and there's two voices in my head, the guy that wants to get stuff done and the coward. And the coward is like, hey, make sure you keep an eye on that gater because he might be on you. Because as I'm sitting there bouncing trying to get this gater out from this ledge, I'm just bopping up and down on the water. So I look at a wounded animal.
And then the guy who's trying to get stuff done is like, dude, shut up, let me get him out of this ledge and then we'll look. And then the coward speaks up again, like, hey, if that thing took off when you started this, he's going to be in your face in two seconds. And I was like, okay, woos and I look up and he's like three feet from me, coming hard, and I just gave him the heisman and tossed him back and he ended up. I ended up catch, but I had to bring the other
one to shore first. And there's three people on shore freaking out because they saw the whole thing. They told me it was a six and a nine. They were both nine. They would both be. They were freaked out, like I was gonna die. I was embarrassed that I was dumb enough to get that gator stuck on the ledge. And I'm coming out making an excuse just like I couldn't get them over the ledge, like I don't know
what happened. They're like, they're all white, and I'm like, what's the problem, Like that has to happens all the time.
I thought they're gonna say, seat floating, body parts floating. Well, may I say, man, say something because I watched and I love I love you, I love your personality, I love what you do. But with me, with cars, with anything happens in my life. I guess the one statement, which is, wow, I never saw that happen before. So you're saying they never do it, they don't do it,
and I watched. The thing that I love the most is that you always get posts to say, well, it's going to happen eventually, and you laughed and said.
Give me a day.
Yeah, yeah, what you mean.
It's like driving your car one day. If you drive your car, Logan get to do an accident, thanks Einstein, like, yeah, anything could happen. And listen, I get if you're the post that I try to respond with. I try to engage with people, and yeah, I get bit all the time. I probably been bitter for fifty times. I've been bit in the head five or six times, but not by those puppy lap dog gators. It's a gator that I'm
rescuing or a gator I just caught. And I can't build that relationship with with every Casper, with every Zeus, Stumpy, Sebastian, et cetera, et cetera. They're fifteen or twenty more. I just can't build that relationship with There is an inherent melowist to some of those gators, Like I a gayer named Jigsaw. I did a YouTube video about him the day I caught him. I looked at the camera and said, I guarantee you two weeks I can pet him in
the face. There's a depth in her eyes sometimes that I don't know how to explain it, but I know when I see it. So I have him about twenty times, but I could pet him in the face the fourth day he was in the pit.
I do notice though, you just like I got a little bandage on your left hand there. I just it's just just anecdotally for people that.
May don't ask you about your failures.
No, but you don't have to ask about mine. They're they're fairly well known.
Some research then bring them up. So the thing that got me, that's actually, that's actually I wish it was a gator was a chainsaw blade trying to sharpened it. Trying to sharpened a chainsaw in my truck in the rain. Because I'm an idiot.
I know you you say you've been, you know, bitting on a number of occasions.
I always think, you.
Know, I we see the movies Delegator close its mouth, does the role You're gone?
You have clearly uh survived. So what's the why? Why?
Why why have you walked away from so many alligator bites?
Usually it's stirring a feeding Like I get impatient at the end of the day. And if I'm doing a mass feeding, I'm just handing out meat like a dealer at a casino. Just like here, you get one, you get one, you get but all of a sudden, yeah, I'll have them grab me and they'll kind of shake them like, hey, sorry, dude, didn't know it was you. Spit me out, then do with the head tricks. Put
my head in the geter's mouth and got bit. You know, five or six times, either I taste like crap or they know it's me and they're like, hey, dummy, stop touching stuff.
In That wound is not a significant wound for you.
And poor bleach in it and stitch it up. If you look at again my YouTube channel, I got been by a twelve foot gator in the arms a big twelve foot jump. We used to do a show for a school group and a little gator hole and a big, giant, twelve foot alligator would come out. You'd reach around with a stick and he would just pop up and scare the crap out of these kids. But it's to show that, hey, you can be in the middle of every lage. You see a little puddle, don't think that's a good place
to fill your canteen. There might be a twelve foot alligator in there. So we were trying to get him in the water, and the guy was behind him and I'm tapping him on the nose because he'll jump at you. His name is Lunge, and he jumped, and when he jumped a second time, my foot hit a little like a tree stumped that was in there, and I couldn't slide my foot back, and he went over like instantly and just got one tooth in me and opened it up. As he had locked on. He probably would have taken
my arm off. But I ended up teaching Jimmy, who was my partner on the TV show. I taught him how to sew that day on my arm. So poor bleach and tea tree oil and starts stitching.
Kid, You realize with us, if that, what if those things happened, that's a story for the rest of our lives. And we not only wouldn't go back in the water or near the alligator, we'd move from Florida back to New England, probably where there are no alligators. So for people who haven't seen the videos, and we'll link to those videos, Paul's lying there some of them look affectionate toward him. I love that some come when you call
their name. Now, they got a brain the size of a line of beans, so I didn't know that they have this spac That's the question. I mean, are are are our gators?
They respond to you in the way that I would think, you know, a cat or a dog might, and and a dog is a pretty smart animal.
Yeah.
I mean.
They respond to you in the way that I would think, you know, a cat or a dog might, and and a dog is a pretty smart animal.
Yeah. I mean it's all food driven, though. Most of them walking over with their mouth open. They're expecting something like, Hey, I did just stupid trick. Where's the reward? If you see this video I just posted on Instagram, I reposted one of me and this gator named Snoopy, and I chase him and tickle him, but he walks up, opens his mouth right in my face, and I just look at his mouth, I look back at the camera. I throw him the food and then I go like, tickle it.
I mean, he just runs back in the water. I can't cuddle with that gator. He's a little too jumpy for that. That's why he kind of reacts to the tickle monster thing.
Well, okay, so the gator the learning curve on that. By the way, Oh this one not so much. So I think just tickle, just tickle this one.
No, no, incredible. That's a great point. There's I always say in my YouTube channel, Gator Boys Outdoors, that says at the beginning, like, hey, they're all very unpredictable from one to another, though, I mean like each one is unpredictable
from one to another within themselves. Incredibly consistent animals. You gotta understand the operating system, and the gater's brain is so much smaller than that of like a mammal or a prime primate, especially that they have emotions, They hold grudges, they get their feelings hurt, they they plot and plan. Gators are like living breathing machines pretty much.
But you know what, there were studies, Paul, and I'm sure, I mean, you're up on this. It showed they wanted to know gator sentience, what they felt, and they came up with that they feel anxiety, distress, frustration, excitement, fear, suffering, and that's I mean, that's about it. And I'm wondering when you're with them though, since they're they're they're hunter and they want to be fed. How do you know when you're playing with Casper that you threw them three
chicken legs and he's full? How do you know Casper's not going I'm not there yet, I'm not at the close.
It's it's actually the opposite. You don't want to feed him before you get in there, because Casper's cataracts to what I and the other one is probably almost completely blind, so his vision isn't great. So if you feed him and all of a sudden you go to touch a side of his face, he might think you're feeding him again. Grab it turns on that feeding response. Gators in Holiday Park are just like that, Like god Zilla's a sweetheart. I can kiss them on the side of the face.
I'm not going to do it for a few minutes after I feed him, because he still has that feeding response. He's the He's not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. But so people think they're just stuffed with food. It's got nothing to do with that. They're not going to ever view me as a food source. I'm too big.
It is amazing to watch you lie down in a pit with like eight alligators and they don't bother you. They walk around you, they walk over you, they sit with you. Now do they like affection? Do they like to be I mean, there's one video of a little albino alligator. The guy is scratching its back. We just learn about that word, but they called this an albino lot. That's the name of the alligator has albinism. But okay, caught me up break and it's scratching him and the
alligator's laughing. He's got a mouth white hope, So they're saying it's laughing. Do they like to be touched or would they rather not? Because I read that they're also sensitive around their head.
Yeah, I've got a gator namector that My friend Shanda was like this amazing ultra triathlete. She used to lay with hector on her lap for hours and she'd like rub his jaw muscles and his eyes would always just shut super slow like he was. If you look at the video. I tell that story, he's on my life. I talk about it. I rub his jowls, it's his
jaw muscles and his eyes closed. As I mentioned Shandon, I don't know if you remembered her or if he was just like, yeah, that's pretty good spot right there.
But that's what's amazing. They look like there's an affection, and I know you really you say there's not, and that if I do something stupid. I mean, you had the chilling one that I didn't see till after a while. Was you in the show put your head inside the gator's mouth like a lot of times a day and you missed that bad stuff happened a couple of times.
Correct, just got I'm failures, huh.
But well, I just wanted to because the fact.
That absolutely I used to be very I have a lot of respects for the Seminel tribe of Florida. I knew Chief James Billy is a front to mine, the former chiefess of the tribe. And I always thought, if you're going to do a wrestling show, you do the whole thing the Seminals did, and you put your head in the gator's mouth. It doesn't hurt the gator in
any way whatever. But at Holiday Park. Holiday Park, we do sometimes ten twelve, fifteen shows a day, so you jamming ahead in the gator's mouth fifteen times a day. Every once in a while, you touch something, and I'll tell you of all the ones, Casper, he's going to be like super mellow. Yeah, he's He was the one. I put my head in his mouth and I touched something and he grabbed it and held and then he went to crunch it and I heard something pop and
I almost was laughing. I was like, that's either your tooth on my head and then he let me go, almost like sorry, dude, like and it was oly. I only had him about a year at that time. Yeah, I remember just thinking what he had now was. I wasn't think I was gonna die. I was just thinking it's gonna pop. Obviously the pops, I'm dead right.
That was.
I don't know if that's some defense mechanism, but I was just like, it's gonna pop. But there was any fearity.
They don't let go. What I read was when once they go to attack food, the don't let go. But he let go.
Yeah, that's again, that's a wild gator that has that mentality.
Yeah.
I think he crunched once, crunched twice. It was like, oh wait, that's that dude, that's that guy. That's the guy that's always in here. Like, I get it, and I just sat in his back for you know, five or seven minutes telling jokes, so it's he knows it's me at that point.
None ever surprised you to the point where you went, Wow, I really haven't seen that before. That's an unusual behavior.
In a wild gater. Yeah, I've some stuff that I've seen her gator breach before, like a dolphin like swim like and then come out of the water, And I was like, didn't never, never heard about that in my life. He just got scared. He got scared. I was trying to catch him. I went to put the noose on him. He wiggled out of it, and then as he took off, he just went straight up. And when I surfaced, this guy was vertical. This guy was like flying.
Wow.
He was just trying to escape and went up and when he got in the air just kind of played out and splashed down like a belly flop. It was amazing.
So have you seen the video that Peter was talking about about this gentleman what's his name?
It's Wally and and.
The alligator is Wally, but it's he has certified it as an emotional support game. Jose and he there's videos of him taking it to a local swimming pool where the gators in the pool with kids, they're all swimming around.
He opens his mouth.
Both his his owner and the kids are are petting his tongue and as you say that, that's usually a cue for there's something in my mouth, I should eat it. Yeah, but is he set you can condition is it?
Yeah, he's he's been conditioned not to do that, like if you I'm That's why all the all the Zigfried and Roy stuff comes up. People say that stuff about, oh remember this happened, that happened, Yeah, but all the other dozens more than where it didn't happen. It's about the guy knowing his animal. Like like I said, I've got fifteen or twenty that I can't do that stuff with. I know I can't do that with those animals, so I'm not going to try it.
Do you have any feelings one way or the other about the notion of an emotional support alligator in general?
Yeah, I think it's fine. It's like I said one of my videos, I said, the best demoketers that they don't love you back like you can you love all them all you want if if he he'll never let you down because you don't expect anything from him, you know what I mean. So, but yeah, I think that's fine.
What happens you see people of golf course, what I've read and what I've seen is they have explosive speed for short distances thirty or forty feet. The thing can outrun a human. Correct. What happens if you I.
Mean, they're not gonna if you're if you're ready for it, you could probably out sprint them. But if you're just he comes out of the side, Yeah, you're you're not gonna have time to even react.
So how do you any tip for if you're out there and you encounter an alligator crocodile that's coming after you, and you can't get away.
It's too late at that point, it's not going to They're not going to come after you. They just don't. It's very rare they do that.
The gators that you've more or less the lack of a little word, domesticated, could they go back into the wild and be just fine? Oh yeah, no problem. Their their natural behaviors would come right back.
Yeah.
Yeah, So do you get pushback ball? Because I know you love these animals that you don't lease them back. Does anybody? Does anybody give you anything?
You can't. You can't release them. I wish I could, that would be my goal. But by law, by Florida state law, any nuisance alligator that is over four feet in length has to be killed to kept in captivity. As a trapper, you are essentially paid with the meat and the height of the alligator. You don't get paid by the state to catch them, get like a stipe into like thirty or fifty bucks, I think, but you
don't really get paid for it. It's like so if you don't catch an alligator, you don't get anything at all, because you want to. They All the guys that I know are trappers. They harvest them, so they kill them. They sell the hide and sell the meat that get is probably worth two or three hundred bucks. An eight foot gator like Jesus worth of bucks to me, you know what I mean, Like you're gonna get it. Can sit in your lap and chill out.
Like now you can tell that you love them, you really love them.
Thee I do. I hate I hate traffic I hate what they do every day. I just hate dead gators more like I always want to give it up that I can't stand it. They belong there. It's not that hard to coexist with them. Don't swim in the canals.
Like go to the beach and what is just forever our audience does? What is sort of the mission of your facility? I know you're trying to rescue, but you're also showcasing them, so is there a mission statement behind it?
For me, it's more like just showing they're not these mandating killers and everything's the other They're not just out to get you.
It's really fascinating to see because you've misjudged what these animals are. I mean, you really have a preconceived notion and then you watch this and you go, gee, pretty amazing that these dinosaurs who haven't evolved in ten thousand years because they're so efficient, have a whole other side to them which is not apparent. Paul, it's a pleasure. Thanks so much.
Yeah, safe, Yeah, that's not really my thing, but thanks, thank you. We'll talk to you guys. God bless you.
First of all, what a really lovely guy.
You don't think that a person who is doing this is going to be have quite that heart. I mean it really seems like a lovely, genuine and you get that from watching the videos.
That part of it is, for sure. The other part of it is he respects, he cares about these animals. He really really cares. And that was a big part of this for me. It wasn't just the I'm fascinated by the videos, and it was that I misjudged the animal because it's ugly, it's not cute, And so I looked up a couple of studies and you check out the boxes and you see what the key thing is that makes you feel related to that animal in a sentience, so you can say it's smartest. Isn't that? It came
down to that. The qualis dolphins, all the cute species, cute one over as far as sentience didn't matter, danger or whatever. It's about. Cute is if they're.
It's deceptive because koalas can be little lass they can they can mess with you.
They can koala will slap you around when if you if you've been in a room, if you have a bad experience with the kuala, you were trying to read, and the thing was, how do you know all of a sudden, I'm with Jason.
The kangaroos are a little less kangaroos they are, so we then rank animals, not by intelligence, not by feeling beauty.
Specism is the way we do it. If you've got big eyes and you're looking at it, give you go, you're gonna rip my face off. Oh you're so you rank higher, we treat you better. And that was an eye opener for me because I had no idea that an animal that was that scared, that ugly, that reptilion, that dinosauric, if there's a word prehistory could do the stuff that these the one that you feel tender towards it, and they do you feel like I was thinking, not tender,
but I'm thinking about how wrong I was. When you see that they call alligator. They're all in the pit and he starts going, Leonard, it's time for dinner, and the thing comes out, walks over, opens the mouth. Heach's not yet, ye pushes it down. Okay now, and the scene opens the mouth. Tommy. My wife is sitting there looking at me like I'm an idiot, until she saw the one where they're all lined up in a row
waiting and he's calling the names and they're opening. Then she goes she Actually that's the one when James Bunn runs across the across the he actually actually went ah. So because you don't understand that behavior. Right until I saw these, I had no idea. David Google line, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello sir.
Well that was an interesting experience with all the different alligator antics you could do in the great State of Florida.
Of course, that's that's where I'm living. Yes, you live Alligator Alley. You can probably throw a rocket hit one right now.
Actually I could go about about ten minutes from here. I know I can find an alligator run in the wild right there. But there are so many crazy different things in Florida that you could do. You know, we have Orlando here, we have the Everglades obviously where where Paul is. I wanted to give you a little bit of a game. Can you do this in Florida? So you have to get like this, whether you can or you cannot do that.
Anything you can't do it should be wide up.
Yeah, leg isn't even legal. It's just like out there and do it.
Can you bear back ride a water buffalo?
Water buffalo in Florida?
I'm gonna it's not indigenous.
This is how I think Florida is for free school where they have let's yes.
Yeah, no, absolutely not, that's ridiculous.
Let's see. Can you see mermaids swimming as you die?
Pa?
Yes, of course the famous wiki watchy Florida doing that. Yes, I've been doing it since the nineteen forties and they're still doing it. Can you swim with the dead?
Swim with the dead?
Swim with the dead?
I need a little bit more so, you mean like Jerry Garcia or actual corpses.
What do you I don't think I don't think you can swim with the dead.
I really don't think that that. Are they recently dead? Give me some contact? Yeah? Relative, Okay, So if my old and I can swim with the dead, yes, I'm saying no, but it's got to be. Yes, there's something we don't know.
It's called the Neptune Memorial Refits off of Key Biscayne, Florida, And it's basically, uh, they've manufactured gates, and there's lions and and there's roads, and you you could put your cremated relatives in this cemetery, this underwater cemetery, and you could go scuba diving among and and have time with your deceased loved ones.
Yeah. I don't want to do action. I want to do it like we get at Bernie's where you can actually take him in before you do the ashes. No.
Yeah, Can you visit the oldest city in the United States?
The oldest city in the United States? Why would that be? He's going to say no, and then we'll find out where the oldest city is where he is in Florida. No, the oldest city is probably not in Florida's a trick question. I'm trying to anticipate David, and he's smirking, so he's got a good deal.
Oh are we talking about, like maybe it's an indigenous city, something that the indigenous people.
But I bet it's not in Florida. Is I'm guessing? Quick question? All right? Fine, No, incorrect, because the oldest city is here. You go see.
The oldest city is Saint Augustine. It was founded in fifteen sixty five. It is the longest continually inhabited city in the in the United States.
Let's see.
Can you go under I'll just do a couple more. Can you go underground and explore caverns?
Yes? In Florida. Well, no, wait, I know there's Crystal Cave.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's up north.
That's like, I don't think so thieves in Florida mountains.
No, no, no caving.
We don't have basements, but we do have caverns. It's actually in the Panhandle, which is a little bit different.
This one. That was a bit of a trick question. Wow, last one, last one.
Can you see the second tallest statue in the continuous United States?
That's a very specific Why would that be a no, why would you even ask that question?
And could you see it from a cavern? Yes, you can see the second tallest cat. You can see it.
You can see.
Yes, it's called the Dragon and the Pegasus. They're fighting it out and it is the uh. I believe the Pegasus part is the second tallest, only to.
The Statue of Liberty.
It's in the Hollandale Beach, Florida.
Well, I gotta tell you this has made me one of the book state wide tour of the Great State of Florida.
With the relative's ashes. So you can do that anybody's and go to Cabrea.
I'll petta Gator, I'll go on to counter, go to Orlando, I'll go to the second happiest place.
On By the way, the only place that I ever saw gator in the wild actually was in college. My buddy and I drove to Florida NonStop and we went to the Everglades where there were bugs bigger than your head and I had to pee, and I went to the side of the road to pee, and I got my schmenckel out and I'm peeing and I see this and I run, I run, like you can't believe. I mean, it's right there. It's it's there. And we didn't get into it with Paul, but they can extend their mouth ninety percent.
Like, straight up, are you saying that that's what the alligator would have happen?
Comic, Look, I knew you were going there. Yeah, well maybe he was anticipating. Maybe it's like, well, yeah, he was.
Only forty degrees, but I think this guy needs.
A full ninety. He had the one I closed. He was doing the ocular or whatever they But yeah, it was like right there, and I thought, I'm not in Philadelphia anymore. This is a whole different it's a different world.
But you know the reason I'm less than you know forthcoming about to Florida is my parents. We would go down every winter for you know, winter break, and uh, I was five years old.
I've never seen the Ocean's my first trip to Florida.
So we spent three days driving down, stopped at South of the Border, stayed there over tonight. Right yeah, but there's Miami, staying at the Fountain little hotel where my parents met.
First morning up, have a little breakfast.
Then my mother goes, there's the ocean, sweetheart, run down, go put your foot in the ocean.
And I run down the beach and I step on a man o war.
And I get a sting like you can't believe, and I've got the car to go on. I'm like, F Florida, F the ocean, F preachers, F everything.
And that's one more thing you can do in Florida. That's right there. You go at it to David's list. David, thank you, nice to see you, sir, Thank everybody for listening and watching. And Lauren producer law, thank you for doing the show. Indeed, and we will see you next time. I'm gonna got.
Help.
Why really?
As another episode of really No Really comes to a close, I know you're wondering, is death by alligator attack common in the United States. Well, you know that won't be a one word answer, but first let's thank our guest, Paul Badard. You can follow Paul on Instagram at Gator Boys Alligator Rescue. On Facebook he is at Gator Boys Paul, and on Instagram he is at Gator Boys seven. You can also check out his work adventures at his website,
Everglades Holiday Park dot com. Find all pertinent links in our show notes, our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok YouTube, and threads at really No Really podcast And of course you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing factor story that boggles your mind, share it with us and if we use it, we will send you a little gift. Life changing obviously, but it's
the thought that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and take that bell. So here updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday, So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now the answer to the question is death by alligator common in the United States well.
According to Wikipedia, there.
Have been nine fatal alligator attacks on humans in the twenty twenties alone, and these attacks share some surprising commonalities. Four occurred in Florida, four in South Carolina, and one in Louisiana. One was a forty one year old woman, and another was a forty seven year old man, but the rest were between the ages of fifty eight and eighty eight, and the vast majority were over sixty five.
Six of the nine victims were women. Two victims were killed while walking their dog, three fell into ponds near their home, three were killed on a golf course, with one victim attacked while retrieving items from a lake at night. So here's a ps from everyone here at really know, really,
which we really didn't think we'd have to make. If you are an elderly man or woman living in the Deep South, you know the place where all the alligator attacks happen, and you are walking at night and drop your phone in a lake, maybe just let the alligators have your phone.
I mean, I know you love listening to our show that Hey
Sonder the gators Really No Really is a production of iHeartRadio and Blase entertainment,