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CASEY: Being out here
in the middle of the Everglades in the dark.
This is all new and out of my element,
and that's the kind of stuff I like.
BRIAN: Oh, there he is, there he is.
CASEY: He's right underneath this mangrove, I mean....
Coming in.
Look out.
BRIAN: There you go, good job!
CASEY: My first solo capture, and he's going to poop on me.
I'm not going to pretend like I know what I'm doing,
'cause guess what, I don't, at all.
Whoa!
BRIAN: Hold on to him!
JEN: Death rolling, death rolling.
Go flat. All right.
Casey, stay with him. You got it.
CASEY: I know a lot about predators.
I've studied bears my whole life.
I've followed wolves year round.
And I've tracked mountain lions from the Rockies to the desert.
But there's one top American predator I'm missing.
So I'm heading to gator country.
MAN: Nice one, Casey.
CASEY: I ain't letting this guy go.
I'm bringing my skills to the swamp
to learn how this place works.
Big dude.
How it's changing...
...and what makes gators America's coolest predator.
MAN: He's taking that line.
CASEY: Look at the size of that thing.
This is America...
the Wild.
CASEY: Getting low. JEN: There you go.
CASEY: You tell me where you want it.
Man, they're so strong.
When he does that shake, it takes everything
to hang on to this pole.
Tomorrow I'm headed into the swamps.
Today is my dress rehearsal for the wild.
JEN: OK.
Your job is to keep tension through this pole.
CASEY: OK.
Jen Brueggen is a biologist at St. Augustine Alligator Farm.
JEN: All right, pull those feet up.
CASEY: She's capturing some gators for a physical exam.
JEN: I'm going to jump on that croc
and I'm going to need all that tension
and all that power pointed in this direction
so that he doesn't turn around on me and bite me.
CASEY: Gotcha.
JEN: You ready? CASEY: Got it. All right.
JEN: OK, are you ready?
CASEY: Ready when you are.
JEN: All right, so I'm picking up this tail.
This has to be all in one motion.
CASEY: OK.
JEN: Here I go.
CASEY: Nice! Quick!
When it comes to America's wildest predators,
there's about 1,000 grizzly bears
and 3,000 wolves in the lower 48 states.
But there's over 5 million gators.
And I've never seen one in the wild.
That's got to change.
JEN: All right, so you're going to try and snare
this big one looking right at us.
Now, don't be afraid.
If I start yelling at you, don't take it personally.
I'm trying to save your life.
CASEY: All right, dude.
JEN: OK, so nice and easy.
Now, he's wise to this.
CASEY: I would think so.
JEN: So, there you go.
Be gentle. You need to come this way.
[alligator hissing]
Keep going. Keep going past the jowls.
CASEY: I love you, too.
JEN: Past the jowls.
Hold on to him.
CASEY: And I'm going this way.
JEN: Get it, pull it. Keep tension.
CASEY: Digging in. JEN: All righty.
CASEY: This guy is strong.
[hissing]
You can tell he's not happy.
I don't know how long I can sit here and hold him like this.
This guy's strong, he's trying to get away.
JEN: There you go, keeping tension.
Starting to pull!
CASEY: Man, that guy's heavy.
KEVIN: Everybody, one, two, three, pull!
JEN: Watch your feet. KEVIN: One, two, three, pull!
All right, stop.
CASEY: All right.
JEN: Keeping tension! OK, yep.
CASEY: OK. Holy moly.
KEVIN: I want to keep tension on that rope.
CASEY: It's amazing that that tape
actually will hold that jaw shut.
Look at the size of that thing.
If this guy really wanted to,
he could probably take us all right into the pond.
Huffing and puffing.
If a bear's doing that, it means the same thing.
You're in trouble.
KEVIN: One, two, three.
CASEY: Heavy. KEVIN: One, two, three.
One more big scoot.
JEN: One, two, three, stop!
Hold tension!
CASEY: This big dude is 12 feet long
and weighs 600 pounds.
That is a lot of alligator.
But I know they get as big as 19 feet
and over 1,000 pounds.
Whoa, man.
And all 75 teeth are like wolf canines.
This head feels like it could weigh 100 pounds.
Dealing with bears and mountain lions and stuff,
there's a lot of finesse involved
if you don't want to hurt them.
Believe it or not, you can hurt a grizzly bear.
But these guys, they're nearly bulletproof.
I mean, look how tough these guys are.
So all of this really
is just like almost tickling this alligator.
He could care less, he's tough,
he's the king of this domain, and he knows it.
These guys haven't been around for millions of years
because they're wimps.
Gators have ruled these swamps for millions of years...
from North Carolina to the Keys...
and their numbers are exploding.
But they're not alone.
It turns out there's another giant reptile
right here in gator country.
But this one owns the salt water.
And right now is the perfect time to track him down.
Look at this, see?
I think this is the tail right here.
Look at this, you can see the claws.
Let's walk this way.
This is the home of the American crocodile.
And right now it's nesting season.
OK...
Check this out right here.
You can see where a crocodile walked right up here
and laid on the beach in the sun.
You can see the belly scales.
You can see its tail swooshed in the sand.
This nesting season is in full swing right now,
so there literally could be female crocs
on this beach right now.
I'm not sure if a crocodile is like a grizzly bear.
Will it defend its nest?
Let's go this way.
It's a little nuts for me to be on this beach right now.
I know crocodiles are super-protective mothers.
They help their young to hatch
and even carry them down to the water.
Just a few decades ago,
the endangered American crocodile
was on its way out.
But now they're making a comeback in gator country.
I'm definitely going through this feeling
that I want to see one of these guys, I want to see a crocodile,
but do I want to see a defensive female crocodile
the first time I ever see one?
I don't know if I'm ready for that.
I don't think they make crocodile spray.
Oh, wait. Right there, right there, right there.
Watch your back, watch your back, watch your back.
I just saw right in here something move across,
I think it was a female crocodile.
She must have been sitting right up over here doing something,
but she slipped right over that way.
Stay close, stay close to me.
In dangerous situations,
I'm always looking out for my camera team,
but today I need them to watch out for my butt, too.
I mean, this is so bizarre:
tracking a very large predator on a beach.
A lot of nesting right here.
The nests are easy to miss.
They just look like a giant pile of sand.
So I'm not sure if I should approach, or what.
But I want to see if there's a crocodile, I've got to see it!
Watch this nest.
MAN: What do you think, should we go in there?
CASEY: Just stay close to me.
I'm hearing something. Just stay close.
Right there, in the water right there.
Going underneath that branch.
A pretty big one.
I'm looking at my first wild American crocodile!
Oh, look at this right here!
It's a croc egg.
That's not good news, though. Probably a raccoon.
Every little croc counts right now, so that's a bummer.
But, you know, we've got crocs laying eggs,
we've got scavengers, we've got tracks everywhere.
This is a great spot right here to put up some camera traps.
This will be a great spot.
I think that's going to stay out of the high tide.
Never had that problem in Montana.
I mean, here's an animal I've never set a camera trap up on,
so all I can do is take what I know from other predators
and try to apply it to the situation.
So as I set up the camera traps and then walk away,
I don't know if I'm gonna get anything.
Well, the cameras made it through the night,
so that's good.
I don't see any fresh tracks of any sort,
but that doesn't mean anything.
Let's see what I got.
Oh, what's that?
Oh, cool, it's a raccoon.
That might be the same one that raided the nest.
After looking through all this footage,
there it is:
one single frame of an American crocodile.
And then, just like most predators, she's gone.
But the good news is the crocs
are returning to the Florida shores.
The only problem:
it's a very different Florida they're coming back to.
Here we go, get an osprey's point of view
of southern Florida.
Pretty amazing.
When it comes to understanding wildlife back home in Montana,
I like to get up on top of a high mountain
and get a good look around
and see what is going on out there on that landscape.
Here in Florida, good luck finding a mountain.
This land is absolutely flat.
The swampy everglades is more than 4,000 square miles--
that's almost as big as Connecticut.
It's actually a really wide, slow-moving, river--
and these days, much of that river is running dry.
This is not the place alligators and crocodiles once knew.
I've never seen a place with such an actual drastic line
where it is so obvious.
Like literally to the west,
that land goes for a long, long ways without a building.
And to the right, there's a building
on every chunk of land.
It is quite a difference.
I don't think I've ever looked at a landscape
that's more fragmented.
From the metropolitan area of Miami
to, you know, these big sugar cane fields.
I mean, as far as I can see
there's nothing but open spaces full of some sort of crop.
That all used to be prime alligator habitat.
One thing's for sure, alligators need water,
so when it dries up and goes away,
the alligator's got to go somewhere else to find it.
Even if that somewhere else is a launch pad.
MAN: And liftoff.
CASEY: Kennedy Space Center sits in the middle
of a wildlife refuge.
It's become an important sanctuary for gators--
and NASA wants to make sure they're doing well.
The only way to really know how a large predator is doing
is to track 'em.
And whether that's a bear, a wolf or an alligator,
that means you got to get your hands on 'em.
RUSS: Right there!
CASEY: So we saw an alligator. It went down.
Now we're just trying to find it.
RUSS: You got to be kidding me.
It was right here!
CASEY: Russ Lowers has captured over 1,600 gators for NASA.
His research is monitoring the health of this entire ecosystem.
RUSS: Right here on the right. Right here.
CASEY: It's slippery on this deck.
So I've got something to admit-- I am not a good swimmer.
And the thought of an alligator pulling me overboard, not good.
It's right here, yeah.
RUSS: You got it? CASEY: Not letting this guy go.
All right, I'll put the snare on him.
Casey's doing a great job of getting him up.
Oh, let the line out! Let the line out!
Let the line out!
CASEY: Keep it tacked.
It's got wrapped up in that, in the pole...
RUSS: I got it, I got it. CASEY: All right.
This guy, just got him.
Got him good this time. This guy is a snappy dude.
You don't want to get your fingers, toes, anything
near this guy's mouth.
RUSS: Good job, Casey.
CASEY: All right. Nice.
RUSS: That's good. Beautiful.
OK. One, two, three, go.
All right, one more.
One, two, three, go.
OK, there we go.
You got this one all by yourself!
CASEY: Yeah, that was pretty dang cool.
Finally, gator on the deck.
I did it, and it was awesome!
Look at this.
That's an alligator high-five right there.
But only three of them have
these big, gnarly claws on the front.
It's like an eagle or something.
Look at those big curved suckers.
RUSS: Casey it's not a recapture, it's a new one.
CASEY: New guy. RUSS: It's a new one.
CASEY: So that's awesome.
A big adult like this
will provide new data for the study.
All right, just in here,
and then pull the black trigger, right?
RUSS: Correct.
CASEY: There you go. RUSS: Cool.
CASEY: So I just put the PIT tag in;
it's just like a microchip you put in a dog or a cat
just to identify this individual.
When and where and by whom, captured right here.
RUSS: Casey, I just checked its sex.
You caught the largest female we've had in this study.
CASEY: Largest female?
Well, that's pretty dang cool.
I might not be good at capturing gators,
but I'm always good at capturing the ladies,
if you know what I mean.
[laughter]
RUSS: Well, you caught a big lady.
CASEY: Big mama.
All right, big mama, go have some babies!
RUSS: OK, let's slide her back real easy.
OK, sweetheart. All right?
CASEY: Got it.
RUSS: OK, pull.
CASEY: See ya later, little lady!
Man, she's feisty.
RUSS: She's a good animal.
That was a nice capture.
Biggest lady we've ever caught!
CASEY: That's sweet.
RUSS: That's neat. It's some good data.
CASEY: But we're just getting started.
All right.
RUSS: Gator 1, Gator 2. We have a gator on.
Right there.
CASEY: All right.
One reason these NASA gators are so cool
is because we're right here by the ocean...
and these gators are hunting in fresh water and salt water.
And that's not normal for gators.
But I've seen this kind of intelligence in wolves,
who traditionally hunt on land but have learned to fish.
He's going into the death roll.
It shows just how adaptable these gators are.
These guys have been around
longer than any predator that I've had my hands on.
And I've tracked mountain lions, grizzly bears, packs of wolves.
This is like the perfect American predator right here.
But even the perfect predator can't go it alone.
If I really want to understand gator country,
I need to go upstream a hundred miles away.
Up here there's a critter who's got the gator's back...
a big furry predator that I know well.
JOE: See, here's tracks.
CASEY: Oh, yeah. Go check those out.
Very typical black bear front paw track here,
five toes, this guy's definitely got
those big, spread-out,
I like to call them Fred Flintstone toes.
Likely a male, a younger bear, 200-pound range,
headed that way.
And like bears often do, taking the path of least resistance,
and why not use this nice road?
Joe Guthrie studies black bears and how they use the forest.
JOE: This looks well-traveled right here.
CASEY: It's actually private land,
but the owners have banded together
to save it from development.
Look here.
JOE: Yeah.
CASEY: This is great, you know,
we can see there's a lot of bear activity.
Black bears love to get into these rotten trees.
You can see where a black bear's come in here,
tore this rotten wood up, looking for termites and ants.
Down here on this harder, less rotted wood,
you can see just one claw mark
kind of giving that black bear away.
These bears don't know it, but their protected habitat
is actually the headwaters of the Everglades.
And when it rains here
it filters downstream to resupply gator country.
JOE: Watch for alligators here in this little canal.
CASEY: Alligators and black bears.
JOE: Stomping around in the same place, man.
CASEY: So how do they deal with that?
Oh, yeah, there's a gator right there.
In Montana a bear sees water,
it runs in without second thought.
It's like, water! Yay!
Here? Nothing here can walk up to the water
without second thought
or it doesn't live very long.
We've got a lot of fresh tracks.
We're going into an area
where there's been a lot of black bear activity.
A lot of rubs, a lot of things.
So right now it's that primetime for bears,
so we're just going to sneak in there
and hopefully get a glimpse.
[crunch]
CASEY: Don't step on the pinecones, camera boy.
Wait, wait, wait! Do you see it?
He's right there!
CASEY: Right there, a Florida black bear.
Looks like a young bear just hanging out.
He definitely sees us and curious, doesn't know what I am.
Now, these bears don't survive by being dumb,
so I don't think the bear's going to give us
a whole lot more time.
Ears forward, definitely, he's locked in,
but hasn't really identified what we are yet
because I'm laying here like an alligator in the sand.
There she goes.
But while I'm watching this bear...
Joe gets word that another bear
has walked into one of his traps.
[thud]
CASEY: Oh, that didn't sound good.
JOE: OK, everybody off.
CASEY: Siri, what do you do when the buggy steering breaks
and you have a bear in a trap?
[ding ding]
SIRI: I'm trying to guess what you want me to do.
CASEY: Well, you could try to fix the steering column
on this thing so we can get there.
So there's no choice but to hoof it.
They're going to mix up tranquilizer
that will correspond with the weight of the animal.
JOE: All right, here goes.
CASEY: Hey, bear.
Nice shot.
CASEY: Bear's out. That's good.
It's a beautiful bear.
JOE: Can you size that?
There's almost no tooth wear here at all.
CASEY: Definitely not worn down at all.
His hair coat is amazing.
Around here I've been sweating all the time.
I can't believe these black bears can walk around
with this black coat in this Florida sunshine
and have this humidity
and still have a hair coat that's so thick and beautiful.
A 3-year-old female black bear in spring
would never look this healthy in Montana, or anywhere else.
This area, this part of Florida, the headwaters,
the Everglades, these black bears are thriving.
It's perfect, it's bear-adise for them here.
Check this out right here.
Really cool just to look at a black bear's paw here.
These claws are designed for many things,
but one thing they can do really well is climb trees.
They're short, they're curved,
and they can just dig them into the bark
and shimmy up something without branches,
even a telephone pole, no matter how big they are.
And if you look at the toes right here,
curved toes, five toes, and if it was a grizzly bear,
that fifth toe would sit right about there,
for more of a straight line of the toes.
Black bear kind of curves around.
If you see a track, it's a sure way to tell.
This GPS collar will reveal how this bear moves
in and around this forest.
And for the first time, we're attaching
a National Geographic Crittercam to a Florida black bear.
We may get the first ever footage of a bear
interacting with a gator.
This is one thing I've never done,
to put a camera on a bear to see how it walks across the land
and see what kind of choices it's making.
OK. I think we're good, guys.
See you later.
I came to Florida with a lot of unknowns.
I wanted to discover and get to know the croc and gator,
and I bumped into a black bear.
They are intertwined with the croc and the gator.
And it's important that they remain healthy.
If they can have everything
that they need to remain healthy,
that'll trickle down
and the Everglades will remain healthy.
This is the first ever Crittercam footage
of a Florida black bear.
It's really cool to see how she's following her nose,
moving around.
But right to a gator pond?
You better watch out!
CASEY: Wait a minute. That's not a gator!
It's another bear!
I bet they're siblings!
This is so cool to see.
These bears are healthy and doing great,
but that means they can roam all over.
And out here, bears aren't welcome.
Florida's already got its hands full with gators.
MAN: There he goes.
CASEY: If I go out my back door in Montana,
I expect to see bears and wolves and deer.
But if I went out my back door
and I saw a giant reptile in my swimming pool?
That might freak me out.
Yeah, this is like right in the middle
of a residential area.
TODD: Yeah, we have alligators turning up
just about anywhere nowadays.
CASEY: I've gone to a few
like wildlife-human conflict things,
but not in the middle of a neighborhood like this.
TODD: This may be nothing at all,
but we'll be prepared just in case.
There's over 15,000 alligator complaints a year in Florida.
The biggest issue is there's just not enough room
for all these alligators, all these crocodiles
and all of the humans.
Oh, there's something at the bottom of the pool.
CASEY: Oh, yeah, right in the corner.
TODD: Well, we got something in there.
Yeah, it's an American crocodile.
CASEY: Wow. That is, yeah.
TODD: This is a little bit more rare to find in a pool
than we would an alligator.
So here ya go.
CASEY: OK.
OK.
Catching a croc in a pool is new to me.
I am definitely a fish out of water.
And that's exactly where I want to stay!
Uh-oh, great.
TODD: Let's just be safe, and we'll have us a crocodile.
CASEY: I got him deeper, that wasn't the plan there.
TODD: Be aware that if the snare does not detach from the pole,
he could pull you in.
CASEY: That would be really bad.
Any time I have a new wildlife encounter,
my adrenaline goes through the roof.
I'm hot, I'm sweating, I'm nervous,
and I'm even shaking a little bit.
TODD: Be careful.
Pull straight up fast and hard.
Be careful.
CASEY: Uh-oh.
Kind of stuck there.
Gnarly teeth.
Wow!
Out...
TODD: All right.
OK, hold steady, tension. I'll secure the mouth.
CASEY: Ready? TODD: Toward me.
CASEY: So the fact that this is an American crocodile,
what is this guy's future?
TODD: His future is bright.
You and I are going to go release this animal immediately,
and hopefully he'll stay out of swimming pools.
Ready?
CASEY: Uh, kind of, yeah.
TODD: We're good.
CASEY: This guy is stout.
Wow! Heavy. Whipping my butt!
You must be strong!
TODD: In my lifetime I went
from not being able to find one for 20 years.
Now I'm seeing crocodiles all over town,
which, that's a great thing for the species,
but the issue now is the humans are not accepting
of the crocodile's presence.
CASEY: It's the same story with America's wolves.
Both species have come back from near extinction.
But now some people just aren't comfortable
with having them around.
All right, let's take this gal to a good spot.
If we would have found an alligator in the pool today,
it would have been euthanized.
But we didn't, we found an American crocodile,
and they get a lot of help.
In fact, they have a three-strike rule.
All right.
TODD: This is the animal's first capture.
If we capture him two more times in an urban situation,
he'll be placed in captivity.
But for right now he has a chance
to be a wild crocodile still.
CASEY: That's what we like!
TODD: So here we go.
All right, go ahead and pull the ***,
release the cable and work it over the snout.
CASEY: OK. TODD: Pull.
CASEY: There you go.
Stay out of swimming pools!
TODD: He's giving you a little smile there.
CASEY: Pretty cool.
American crocodile going back out into the wild.
But this croc doesn't know his home has an intruder,
and it eats crocs and gators for lunch.
CASEY: Pythons can grow up to 25 feet
and eat almost anything-- even alligators.
So you're the python hunter.
RUBEN: Yeah, that's what they call me--the python hunter.
CASEY: I'm hitching a ride with Ruben Ramirez.
This guy won the annual python challenge.
What kind of numbers are we talking?
RUBEN: I would say that there's in the tens of thousands
in the Florida Everglades.
They have no natural predators here.
CASEY: Ruben just starts referring to them
like they're everywhere.
And I'm like, really?
RUBEN: We could just pull over right here and we could catch.
CASEY: Let's do it. RUBEN: Let's do it. We're on.
CASEY: Look at this place.
It's like a jungle out here.
RUBEN: See, look. This is a good spot right here.
CASEY: So if we see a python, what's the game plan?
RUBEN: The game plan is to let you catch it, man.
[laughter]
CASEY: Are you thinking like a snake right now?
RUBEN: Yeah. I'm thinking like a snake.
CASEY: I'm trying to tap into my inner snake.
RUBEN: Yeah.
CASEY: Man, if there was one laying in here,
you wouldn't have a clue.
RUBEN: No.
CASEY: Till you're stepping on it.
Next thing you know, it's got you.
RUBEN: I have a feeling
we're going to pull something out of here.
If you see it stretched out,
just grab the tail and hold it and call me.
CASEY: OK.
RUBEN: Just grab it.
CASEY: I'll call you.
Wait a minute. I don't have your number.
RUBEN: Scream the code. CASEY: Scream the code.
Code word python, python, python.
RUBEN: You got it.
CASEY: Come on, baby.
Thinking like a snake. Thinking like a snake.
RUBEN: I can feel it.
I can feel one coming out somewhere any minute now.
CASEY: And it's perfect, the sun's going down.
It's like when they start to...
Oh, right here.
There's a python right here.
CASEY: Ruben!
Python! Python! Python!
[laughs] [bleep, bleep]
Look at this dude!
I'm going to get back to my hook here!
Look at this guy.
This is the biggest snake I've ever had my hand on.
And I'm gonna use my tool here the best I can.
[bleep]
Ha ha ha ha!
Yeah!
We got one!
You see how feisty that thing was?
Look at this, an Everglades python right here.
Look at this thing. This thing was strong.
I tell you, man, I was walking up, she was right here.
I could barely see her, I walked past her!
RUBEN: Yeah! They get camouflaged.
CASEY: And then when I walked up I couldn't figure out
which end was the head, which end was the tail.
Finally I could see where it tapered down there,
and I remembered what you told me--
grab the tail and just hang on.
RUBEN: That's what you got to do.
CASEY: Look at this python.
She's heavy, she's fat, which is not a good thing
'cause that means she's eating a lot.
She's out here pretty much destroying this ecosystem.
These gals, these snakes-- You think this one's a female?
RUBEN: Yeah, by the way it looks, too,
it looks like she's full of eggs, too.
CASEY: I mean, that's the kind of snake
that we want to catch, you know.
Just catching this one snake right now,
you could be potentially in just this year
taking out 50 pythons.
If she's full of eggs, we're going to have 51 more,
and then all those offspring can lay eggs.
And she has got plenty of years left in her.
RUBEN: Oh, yeah.
CASEY: She can keep just that cycle going
over and over and over.
So every python counts, catching these.
RUBEN: Every single python counts.
CASEY: That's why the Florida python hunters
are doing what they can, man.
RUBEN: There it is.
It's a nice snake.
CASEY: Beautiful snake.
RUBEN: OK, she measures 9 feet, 1 inch.
Now all we got to do is just bag her up
and get her to the university as soon as possible.
CASEY: There's a perfect place for pythons
somewhere out there in the world.
It's just not here in the Everglades.
Dude, I'm out of here.
RUBEN: Good luck with the gators, man.
CASEY: Take it easy.
RUBEN: All right, buddy. Take it easy.
CASEY: So I ask Ruben to drop me off just where I like it--
in the middle of nowhere.
Because something's been bugging me.
Almost everything I've done in gator country
has been with some sort of help.
I've captured wild gators...
wrangled pool crocs...
tagged black bears...
snagged pythons.
But I still really haven't gone it alone.
So I have one last mission--
to get closer than ever to gators.
But this time, I'm going solo.
Right now is alligator mating season--
when aggression and testosterone are at their highest.
It's an amazing event few people ever see,
and the perfect time to execute my plan.
If I could find the right body of water,
there are some massive alligator congregations.
There's no better time just to get out there
and just to put myself right in the middle of it
and just become one of the gators.
It's a good camping spot.
You can see the gators are starting to show up out there.
There's a lot of activity going on out there in the water.
I can hear a lot of splashing.
I'm going to grab the guys
and we're gonna head out there and see what's going on.
You ready to do this?
ERIC: Yup.
CASEY: Just got to find that right spot.
Let's go down this way a bit.
I just keep hearing all this splashing out here.
I know it's alligators.
There's a lot of activity.
The only way I'm going to take this to the next level
and really understand these alligators
is to get into their domain tonight.
It's time to head into the gator pond.
But the only thing I could haul out into the backcountry
is a flimsy inflatable kayak.
Look at that big guy.
I'm up here on solid ground where I feel really comfortable.
And he's out there in the water, where he feels very comfortable.
But tonight, I'm going on that side.
With predators, size matters.
I'm counting on being the biggest thing out there.
But if a gator comes in for a bite,
I'm in serious trouble.
Look at this guy.
Hey, dude.
Coming out there with you.
I mean, I'm sitting here trying to do my job
and pump up this kayak,
but I have to have my head on a swivel
because I have gators everywhere.
Look at this.
CASEY: That's a big gator.
MAN: He's close, Casey.
CASEY: Yeah, he's close, I mean, if he wanted to come quick.
I think I'd let him eat the kayak.
I mean, instantaneously that hiss, and he's coming.
Like literally coming.
Now what's he wanting to do here, Mr. Gator.
This big male alligator that's got lots of scars on him,
he's coming to me, and I don't like it.
Here he comes.
And I might have to get those paddles in the morning.
He's...he's got that big... well.
You going to go back out there, man?
I'd prefer it.
All right.
He's not wanting to back off.
I've got this guy.
I've got a bunch of guys over here looking at me.
Oh, we got a gator coming in.
ERIC: You got your paddle ready?
CASEY: Yeah, I got it ready. I want you to be ready.
ERIC: I'm ready.
If I'm going to enter the water, it's now or never.
[alligators grunting]
I have got gators all around me.
They're everywhere.
CASEY: This guy's coming over with purpose.
Look at that.
Hey, man.
You got to be careful.
I mean, usually when these big gators do that,
it's because they're being territorial,
they're in the mating season and chasing off other males
and kind of showing their dominance.
Look at this big guy right here.
Very close to my boat.
I have to admit,
it kind of freaked me out a little bit.
I just felt something wiggling around underneath my boat.
Right now my butt is like a ham sitting right down in the water.
I don't know if I like that.
This behavior is bizarre.
You know, I thought they'd be more shy,
but just shows that these alligators
are super-intelligent predators.
They're curious, they hear something,
they want to come over and check it out.
Look, right here is another big one.
I'm out here because I crave moments like this--
when I'm in the wild with one of America's great predators.
Just getting down to alligator level out here
in their kingdom.
This is so cool.
I didn't see any mating,
but the gators gave me something better--
an incredible moment without fear--
just shared curiosity.
The crocodile and the alligator are a lot like the grizzly bear.
People don't understand them, they fear them.
And if this wilderness is going to exist,
then the people who live with these predators
need to understand them for what they are.
They need to take that fear and change it into respect.
That's amazing.