A Day With The DICOVERY CHANNEL

By: Glenn Wilsey, Sr.

I would like to THANK all of you that read my stories every month. I work hard to let the world know what it is like to live, work, play and try to maintain our right to be in The Everglades. The Airboat Association of Florida web site has been up for two and a half years and we’ve received over half a million hits (visits to the web site). These hits came from people all over the world, in all walks of life. Office managers have emailed me to tell me that their employees have been reading my stories during their lunch breaks. Families have e-mailed me to tell me that the whole family gets together to read my stories. School teachers and students e-mail me to tell me that they read my stories and use them for projects or for a better grade. Because "you" my faithful readers keep coming back to read my stories, I‘ll keep writing them.

My first story from the year 2000 is in all of the fourth grade social studies books in public schools throughout The State of Florida starting this school year. I feel so honored. I’ve also been approached by some magazine editors who have been reading my stories and want to publish some of them in their magazines. Last month, the BBC in London, England contacted me and asked if they could send a team from their office, in conjunction with The Discovery Channel, to interview me here, in The Everglades. They said they had been reading my stories and would like to meet me so they could film my stories in person. I told them "YES" and I met with Kate. Kate was in charge of the camera crew and we set up a meeting to arrange the day’s events for filming. I had to set up my own team for the shoot and called in the best crew I know. Friends of mine with the right stuff… knowledge of The Everglades and their own mechanically sound airboats.

The first person I called was Danny Zocco. Danny is a staff writer here at The Airboat Association of Florida web site. He said he would love to be a part of the shoot. That was one airboat for the shoot and Danny called his nephew Randy Melvin to provide his boat for the second camera boat. I still needed one more boat for the shoot. My boat is small and quick, great fun for me but it wouldn’t have been practical for ferrying around a camera crew from the BBC. I wanted to use a bigger and faster boat for the shoot. I called my friend Pete Miller, and got exactly what we needed. His boat is bigger, faster and absolutely beautiful. Pete said he would be honored to let me use his boat for the BBC / Discovery Channel shoot. I was even more honored that Pete let me drive his boat. I also asked my good friend John Jones (otterman.net) to join us on the shoot. John and I often work together and he is the subject of one of my previous stories. We have done many photo shoots with the animals that we own.

On the morning of the shoot, we all met at my house at Gator Park in The Everglades. The weather was beautiful and the sky was clear and blue, not a cloud to be seen. Danny and Randy showed up first and Pete came shortly there after. We sat and talked about what we would be doing and enjoyed our coffee and a magnificent sunrise. As we sat and talked, John "otterman" Jones and the Discovery camera crew pulled up and we loaded all of the gear into the boats and zoomed off into The Everglades. We didn’t want to waste a minute of the beautiful day.

The cameraman, Tom, filmed me piloting the boat. We skimmed across the open sawgrass prairie until we found a nice place to stop and they began the interview. Kate asked me questions such as, "What is it about The Everglades that I love so much." I told Kate to just listen and as we sat there in relative silence for a few moments I think she began to understand. I explained how the airboat is the only way to see the glades without destroying any of the plant life or scaring any of the animals. In the middle of nowhere, the animals and birds are pretty well hidden. I told Kate she would see a lot of birds and alligators on a tour we would take at Gator Park later in the day. After our interview on the river of grass, we headed for Safari Park to meet up with Jose Novo to play with alligators and crocodiles. As we pulled up to Safari Park I told Tom the cameraman to look to his right. There was a 10 foot alligator sitting at the boat ramp.

The alligators have no problem sharing The Everglades with an airboat tour company. As we tied the boats to the dock, Jose met us and we headed directly for the alligator arena to do a show for the tourists. We asked Tom if he wanted to come into the alligator arena but he was a little apprehensive about getting in the pit with us. Kate was in charge, and not knowing alligators like we do, she decided it would be better if Tom filmed from the outside of the arena. We said we understood and maybe he could come in with us the next time they came. Being in the arena with alligators and crocodiles can be intimidating. Jose and I both have a great love and respect for the alligators and Jose explained to the tourists that we were not there to wrestle alligators, but to educate the tourists and the world about the alligators and their habits.

Jose stepped up to another 10-footer and tapped him on the nose. The alligator opened his mouth wide. Jose explained to the tourists that an alligator can not see directly in front of himself, then he put his hand in the alligator’s mouth to show the tourists that the alligator did not know his hand was there. As Jose pulled his hand out, he lightly tapped the alligator’s mouth and the alligator slammed his mouth shut with a loud pop; just missing Jose’s hand. Then it was my turn. I stepped in front of the alligator and side stepped him and the alligator turned to grab me. I know just how close I can be without getting caught by the alligator. I then put my hand in the alligator’s mouth and did a big mouth pop. The show lasted about half an hour and the tourists went away understanding that alligators are not the monsters that they see on television, but that we must still be very careful around them. After the tourists left, Jose and I did one more interview for the Discovery crew. I jumped on an alligator and Jose jumped on a crocodile and we explained the difference between them and got some good close up shots of them next to each other. We then thanked Jose for all of his information and headed back to the boats. We soon disappeared back into the high grass. After playing for awhile we sped our way to Gator Park for an airboat tour with tourists.

Once we were back at Gator Park, I loaded one of the big tour boats with tourists and left the dock. On our way out to the open grass, we idle down a channel dredged by The Army Corps of Engineers and the channel is where we see a lot of alligators. The water is the alligator’s safety zone and when they can find deep water they will set up their territory so that it is close to the deep water. We see a lot of alligators as we travel slowly down the channel. We also see the birds close up. The first bird we saw was a great blue heron, scanning the shallow water for fish or, maybe, a snake? The great blue heron also likes to eat baby alligators. It is said that great blue herons eat more baby alligators than any other birds in The Everglades. Further down the channel a purple gallinule came out of the saw grass to see us, as well as many other birds.

Kate said she wanted to take video of tourists interacting with the tour guide. Interacting with the tour guide means me (the tour guide) teaching tourists about The Everglades and tourists walking around in the glades with me. It is so cool to see the faces of the tourists when I invite them into the water. Some are apprehensive, afraid of alligators or of getting stuck in the mud. Some tourists just jump right in. I like to tell them not to worry, "we haven’t lost anyone yet, ‘cept for that guy back in ’79 but I believe they found most of him a couple of months later." Sometimes it takes a few moments before they realize that I’m kidding. The bottom of The Everglades is a soft mud, so I do tell everyone to take off their shoes before stepping into the water. One of the first questions I am always asked is, "what about quick sand?" I tell them there is no quicksand in The Everglades. Then I explain to the tourists that the quicksand stories were made up by people in the city, that needed a good story to tell, but were to afraid to come to the glades to find out the truth. The tourists are also surprised to learn that alligators are not going to come out looking to eat us. I tell all of them that alligators will "bite" you but they will not eat you. People taste terrible to alligators because alligators don’t have salt in there normal diet and we taste like salt. When an alligator grabs a human the first thing they taste is salt, that’s not normal to them, so they will spit a human out quickly. Since 1950 only about 9 people have died in the State of Florida from alligator bites, but that doesn’t mean that an alligator won’t bite you. We have 75 to 125 alligator bites that are reported each year. I asked the tourists if they had any more questions and they said no and told me I covered everything. I asked all the tourists to get back on board the airboat and we zoomed back to the channel to see the alligators one more time, before going back to the dock.

Kate and her crew had to leave quickly because they had to catch the last national park tram of the day so they could get some more video from the lookout tower at Shark Valley. My crew and I went back to my house at Gator Park and they all packed up their gear and went home.

I would like to thank Kate and her crew for coming out to see us. It was fun.

I also want to give a special thanks to Danny Zocco, Randy Melvin, John Jones and Jose Novo for their help and a really big thanks to Pete Miller for letting me use his airboat for the video "THANKS SO MUCH TO ALL OF YOU."

The show that developed from the tour and interviews should air on The Discovery Channel sometime during January or February of 2002.

Once again, my thanks to all of my faithful readers for making this happen for me! I do like hearing from the people that read my stories, so if you like my stories (or not) please e-mail me and let me know.

As always, if you are a teacher or a student and my stories can help you with your lessons, you may use my stories in your classroom or as part of your assignment. Please, however, I ask that you e-mail me and let me know what grade you made or even if the class enjoyed my stories.

Remember… "NATURE RULES!"

Glenn W. Wilsey Sr. "GATORMAN"

PS. If any of my stories can help you with anything for education (a grade, class project, or a science fair) just e-mail me, and I will give you permission to use the story. All I ask is that you e-mail me back, and tell me what grade you got or if the class liked my story THANK YOU!!!!

*This story or any part of it can not be used or reproduced with out written permission of the author!