She’s everything a gator could want
She’s fearless, she’s fun and she’s showing the world why these gators are important and shouldn’t be feared. She is even a TV celebrity. Savannah Boan has the job she dreamed of for years and she and her costars are loving it. “Blackwater and I spend time together every day. We go on walks together. Sometimes we just sit together because he’s a really good friend to talk about problems ’cause he can’t tell anybody … he likes to get his butt scratched,” Boan said about the 12-foot gator. Savannah Boan is the only woman at Gatorland in Kissimmee who handles the big reptiles. Boan, who’s been working at the famous Central Florida park for three years, is the crocodilian enrichment coordinator there. Every day, Boan interacts with the crocodiles and gators like Blackwater, an American crocodile who has become her best friend. Boan’s fearless interaction with these creatures is what’s unique about her. She’s given them names and is making them known to the world. Savannah is something of an Instagram celebrity. She uses the platform to share her love for animals with her more than 100,000 followers. “We’ve got people coming in here every single day asking, ‘Where’s Savannah?’ They know Savannah, they know Dundee, they know Ricardo — all of our alligators and our crocodiles by name — and they learned all that from our social media,” Mark McHugh, president and CEO of Gatorland said.
“I like people to see a different side of them, like the only side you’re ever gonna see in the news, is an attack. We’ve given a voice to all of these animals,” the South Carolina native, Savannah said in the video below. “At the top of my goal list was work for Gatorland. For years and years and years — about seven years (until I) finally got to that,” Savannah said. She has become such a driving force behind the positive image of alligators, leading her to do a TED Talk. Now, she’s using her influence to get results. “Second on my goal list was do TED Talks. The priority for me in that event was to get the message about Gatorland global. Gatorland Global is a conservation arm that Gatorland has now. We’re going to other countries and we’ll be on the ground floor with crocodile conservation work all over the world. Third thing on my goal list now is learn to speak Spanish so when I go to these countries I can do a better job as an ambassador for Gatorland Global,” Boan said. Next month she will be traveling to Cuba as part of Gatorland Global, created in 2018 to provide a dedicated conservation program. The organization’s mission is to conserve and educate through specific programs designed to protect alligators and crocodiles in Florida, while providing dedicated resources to support conservation research of critically endangered crocodiles across the globe.
Gator smiles
I was going to cook an alligator for dinner…
But realized I only had a croc pot.
How do you tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile?
You will see one later and one in a while.
Did you hear about the Ethiopian man that fell into an alligator pit?
They say he ate 7 alligators before they could drag him out of there.
I found out today that some alligators grow up to 15 feet!
Most of them only have 4 though.
March 29th Birthdays
1969 – Lucy Lawless, 1961 – Amy Sedaris, 2001 – Ysa Penareejo, 2000 – Hana Hayes
1990 – Carlos Pena, 1918 – Sam Walton, 1991 – Josh Blaylock, 1974 – Kristoffer Cusick