Exploiting Alligators for Profit: The Worst Tourist Traps You Should Never Support

Is your local restaurant or mini-golf course exploiting alligators? Some eateries and entertainment venues imprison alligators in cramped enclosures with filthy pools or force them into dangerous feeding encounters with the public or photo ops. Others stage wrestling shows, even though alligators shun contact with humans and would rather flee than fight.

PETA frequently receives whistleblower complaints about these exploitative “attractions.” Here are just a few of the reports we’ve heard from concerned individuals:

Avoid These Venues That Exploit Alligators

Crazy Alan’s Swamp Shack Restaurant (Friendswood and Kemah, TX)

The restaurant’s Friendswood location in the Baybrook Mall confines Tiby the caiman to a cramped tank. The platform inside of the tank isn’t even big enough for her whole body and tail to rest out of the water, and she’s surrounded by live music performances and bright lights, a far cry from the quiet home she needs.

Dwarf caimans are social animals who communicate through sounds, postures, and touch. In nature, males roar during courtship, and both parents protect their eggs. A mother even responds to her babies’ calls before they hatch. But at this restaurant, Tiby is surrounded by four dirty glass walls.

Bayou Bill’s Crab House (Panama City Beach, Florida)

This restaurant imprisons multiple alligators in an enclosure known as “Big Jack’s Gator Park,” where visitors can participate in photo ops with baby alligators whose mouths are taped shut.

In nature, baby alligators rely on their mothers for protection, but here, they endure stressful, forced encounters with humans. Since even young alligators have powerful jaws, handlers tape their mouths shut, causing extreme distress.

BJ’s Bayou (Roberts, Idaho)

This restaurant—which serves alligator flesh on its menu—keeps Miss Evangeline (an alligator) captive in a small enclosure. Idaho Falls Animal Control reportedly gave her to the restaurant more than 15 years ago.

In nature, alligators prefer water deep enough to submerge themselves and foliage to hide in, but most roadside attractions fail to provide even these basic necessities.

Fudpucker’s Beachside Bar & Grill Gator Beach (Destin, Florida)

This restaurant forces alligators into unnatural situations, including allowing visitors to feed them. They allow patrons to take photos with baby alligators (with their mouths taped shut) and watch live shows featuring captive alligators.

Alligators are naturally shy and avoid loud noises, bright lights, and chaos—but they have no escape at Fudpucker’s.

The Original Crab Shack (Tybee Island, Georgia)

Visitors can feed live alligators confined to an outdoor pond at this Georgia restaurant.

Alligators are typically solitary—particularly adult males—but tourist traps like this one cram multiple unfamiliar alligators together, causing stress and potential aggression in these animals who just want their space.

Gatorland (Pigeon Forge, Tennessee)

This souvenir shop keeps a young alligator or a caiman in a small tank enclosure.

Visitor reviews say it all:

• “This by far is one of the worst gator enclosures I’ve ever seen. It’s sickening to see an animal in such a small cage like that.”
• “There is no reason for an animal to be held in captivity in such a small, confined area.”
• “He has no room to swim in the not-very-clean enclosure.”
• “This isn’t right—to use live animals as an attraction. They aren’t ours to exploit.”
• “The ‘alligator’ is also a sad-looking pitiful creature [who] probably should have animal control called due to the small cage & bad conditions [he or she] is forced to live in.”

Smuggler’s Cove Adventure Golf (multiple locations in Florida)

Each location of this mini-golf course holds 20 to 30 alligators, whom visitors can feed with a fishing pole. This unnatural feeding setup can incite aggressive competition, which could lead to serious injuries.

Congo River Golf (multiple locations in Florida)

Visitors to this Florida mini-golf chain can feed alligators with a fishing pole and participate in photo ops with baby alligators.

Alligators have some of the most sensitive touch sensors of any animal. The nerve endings around their face and jaws help them detect prey, handle objects, and carry their hatchlings without injuring them. Humans touching them, even a light caress, can cause them severe stress.

Gator Golf Adventure Park (Orlando, Florida)

This mini-golf business hosts live shows where handlers wrestle alligators. When humans roughly handle or wrestle alligators—including restraining them, flipping them on their back, and even just approaching and touching them—it not only causes stress to these shy animals but also puts them at risk of injury. When humans sit on alligators, it can restrict their ability to breathe, depriving their organs of oxygen and preventing their bodies from functioning properly. Studies show that even after just a few minutes of restraint, an alligator’s blood stress levels remain high for up to eight hours.

Golf N Gator (Cape Canaveral, Florida)

Visitors to this Florida business can feed adult alligators and hold or touch various reptiles during photo ops.

Handling reptiles can expose humans to zoonotic diseases and bacteria, including salmonella.

Gator Spot and Gatorland (Orlando, Florida)

Gator Spot lets visitors handle reptiles, including baby alligators with their mouths taped shut. The facility also keeps baby alligators in tiny tanks at various locations, including a gas station and a hotel.

Gatorland has a long history of Animal Welfare Act (AWA) citations, including failure to provide animals with adequate veterinary care, dirty feeding receptacles, unsafe public feeding, and enclosures that were in disrepair. However, reptiles (including alligators) are exempt from even the minimal protections offered by the AWA.

Alligator Facts: See These Animals in a Whole New Light

These ancient reptiles lead rich, fascinating lives. Alligators are resourceful and intelligent and they communicate through a variety of bellows, growls, hisses, and roars. Alligators can also use tools. When hunting, they’ve been observed cleverly balancing sticks on their heads to attract birds looking for nesting material.

Alligators are devoted mothers. A female alligator builds a nest and guards her eggs for 65 days. When the babies are ready to hatch, they call out from inside their shells, and she gently carries them to the water in her jaws. She continues protecting and caring for her young for up to two years.

Alligators can live for up to 50 years. They continue growing throughout their long lives and can reach a weight of more than 1,000 pounds. Young alligators can eat about 28% of their weight in one sitting.

With strong tails and webbed feet to help them glide through rivers and marshes, they’re meant for life in the water. As aquatic animals, they can swim great distances in their natural environment.

Alligators can experience pain, fear, distress, and frustration. But they lose the chance to move freely and express natural behaviors when tourist traps use them as sideshow attractions.

What You Can Do to Help Alligators

Avoid roadside attractions that exploit alligators and other animals. Encourage your friends, family, and social media followers to do the same. And remember: Wild animals aren’t selfie props. If you see an alligator in his or her natural habitat, keep your distance. If there’s any risk that your photo will hurt or cause stress to an alligator—or endanger you or your animal companion—it’s not worth it.