On Tuesday, we drove over an hour to Covington, Louisiana and visited the Insta-Gator Ranch and Hatchery. During our experience we were taught how to distinguish an alligator from a crocodile. Alligators are black with gold stripes; crocodiles are gold with black stripes. Also, gators are normally just defensive, while crocs are all around grumpy. Establishments like Insta-Gator are helping Liousiana’s gator population by collecting and incubating eggs and then releasing a percentage of the hatched alligators into the wild, only after they had reached a certain size—4 feet long. The process for collecting alligator eggs involves boats and airplanes. The airplane scans the marshes for alligator’s nests and drops markers near them. The people on the boats then find the markers and extract the eggs. The eggs are very delicate, and whoever is collecting them has to make sure that the eggs are turned upside down or the little alligator inside probably won’t survive. And, although they keep a majority of their alligators for meat and souvenirs, Insta-Gator Ranch releases a small percentage of alligators back into the wild, helping the alligator population thrive in the wild.
