It’s 95 degrees in Summerdale, Ala., where visitors to Alligator Alley have crowded into bleachers and onto tin roof-covered viewing stands for one of three daily feeding times. Beyond a chain-link fence, the heads of some 20 alligators have risen above the water expectantly in a pond as children toss food at them from orange cups purchased for 5 bucks in the gift shop.
“Their favorite color is pink,” a young girl said knowingly to her dad. “That’s what he said last year.”
“He” is Wes Moore, the owner of this Baldwin County tourist attraction. Telling kids, especially those wearing pink, that gators have a favorite color is part of his schtick. Visitors return to his alligator farm year after year because he’s a showman who truly enjoys sharing his passion for gators with people from all over the country.
Right at 11 a.m., a golf cart rolls up and Wes emerges wearing a dark green polo shirt, khaki shorts and wide-brimmed straw hat. He sets two large ice chests on the bank and introduces himself, speaking to the crowd through a headset and making his way up and down the bank so everyone can see what he’s doing.
“We’re gonna ring the dinner bell,” he says.
He’s instantly likable and funny, and the crowd watches as he tells a little about gators in general and a few of his favorites in particular. As he talks, he pulls bloody animal parts out of the ice chests and holds them tantalizingly over the giant creatures who snatch the meat with powerful jaws that slap shut.
“I stay away from snakes,” Wes jokes. “They’re dangerous.”
Every alligator has a name at this sanctuary. There’s Chili Dog, who’s close to 12 feet long and weighs nearly 500 pounds. “He borrowed a lady’s Jack Russell terrier and didn’t return it,” Wes says. And there’s Lefty, “one of my three-footed fellows,” Wes says. “We have about 15 with only three legs.”
The bloody parts belong to feral hogs, or wild pigs, which he says are an invasive species. He feeds the alligators about 1,000 hogs per year, he says, calling it “pork recycling.”
After the feeding is over, Wes encourages everyone to take a turn touching a baby alligator held by a staff member. Then he walks down a long sidewalk toward the 23-acre swamp. At one point, he hops the fence to chase an errant alligator back into the water. An 1,800-foot boardwalk stretches around the swamp where, everywhere you look, gators are floating in the green muck.
The boardwalk was designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, so that “they get to do what they do,” says Wes of his alligators.
He points out the members of the elite “Top 10” – the largest gators at Alligator Alley. The biggest – “He’s as big as they get” – and most famous is named Captain Crunch, and on this day the Captain is feeling somewhat aggressive. He twists and smacks his tail, furiously churning the water as he gives another alligator, Roger, “an attitude adjustment,” as Wes calls it.
Standing in a shady spot on the boardwalk, Wes answers questions and jokes amiably with the visitors. When asked how he got into this business, his standard answer is: “Proper use of habitat, six years of college and I kinda like alligators.”
He first became intrigued by gators when he was a little boy, and his grandfather had a big gator in the cypress swamp on his property – the very swamp over which Wes now stands. His grandfather had purchased the 160-acre farm in 1939 and dug a channel around the swamp. Alligator Alley is housed on about 60 acres there.
“I always loved alligators,” says Wes, who majored in public speaking at Auburn University. “Everybody has something they’re somewhat destined to do.”
He opened Alligator Alley in 2004, the year Hurricane Ivan hit the Gulf Coast. He rattles off the names of the other storms that followed in quick succession: Arlene, Cindy, Rita, Dennis and Katrina. Then came the BP oil spill in 2010. “It’s been a very tough road to make it work,” he says. “It’s a work in progress.”
Summertime is peak season for visitors to Alligator Alley. Even though the temperature is hot, you’ll find lots of shade and places to sit down and take a break from the heat. There’s also a section with snakes, tortoises and other creatures. “I don’t even know how many snakes I have anymore,” Wes says.
The total alligator inventory stands at 600. All of them have been deemed “nuisance alligators,” and many come from Florida, especially the Tallahassee area. “They have a lot more than we do,” he says.
So why is this guy so excited about alligators? “They’re noble creatures, and they’re predictable. They’ll bite you 100 times out of 100,” he jokes. “They’re at the top of the food chain. And they’re the coolest animals on the planet.”
Alligator Alley is open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $13 for adults, $11 for children ages 3 to 12, $11 for seniors ages 65 and older and free for ages 2 and under. For more information, call (866) 994-2867 or (251) 946-2483.