The St. Augustine Alligator Farm

Alligator with Dragonfly Copyright 2005 Jeff Wignall

I've had a love-hate relationship with zoos and animal farms my whole life and I have to confess that as I get older, it's mostly a "hate" relationship. As a very young kid I loved being close to wild animals so much that I overlooked the uneasy feeling I got seeing these wonderful creatures locked behind steel bars and padding along on concrete floors. And I'm still thrilled to stand just a few feet from a lion or a polar bear or to come within touching distance of an alligator. But most zoos and animal "farms," as they often call small zoos in tourist locations, leave me cold. If we put as much money into preserving wild spaces as some cities do into creating zoos, there would be less need for the zoos. With all this in mind, I was very happy this past winter to come upon an animal farm that I felt good about after spending a few hours there: the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in St. Augustine, Florida (http://www.alligatorfarm.com/).

I never feel good about seeing animals--even endagered animals (or perhaps especially endangered animals) in captivity. I know there are arguments to be made in favor of using zoos to save endangered species, but my feeling is that if the zoos are being created to protect and help save endagered species then the public has no business there. Let the biologists and the zoologists work in peace and let the animals live in peace. I simply don't see what good it does to watch a panther or a cheetah pace back and forth, hour on end. The animals are certainly not benefitting and the public is surely not learning anything except that confinement will make any wild animal insane.

There are, in fact, some animal sanctuaries to which the public is NOT invited. The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee (http://www.elephants.com/) is a perfect example. Here elephants rescused from zoos, private collections and circuses are brought to live and die with dignity. And humans (other than staff) are not welcome.

At the St. Augustine Alligator Farm though I felt there was a genuine respect for the animals they had on display and more than half of the sanctuary consists of a boardwalk through a natural environment where visitors can get within touching distance (not that you'd want to experiment with this idea) of dozens of very healthy-looking alligators.

And a very interesting thing happened at the Farm after they created that natural environment: indigenous birds and animals started living there of their own free will! Egrets, herons, roseate spoonbills and ibis--which are perfectly free to fly away--are living and mating in the sanctuary in record numbers and so close that you can shoot close-ups of them with relatively short lenses. During the mating season you're likely to see dozens, if not hundreds, of egrets nesting within yards of the boardwalk.

The Farm was established (largely as a tourist attraction, of course) back in 1883 and unlike so many Florida attractions that have either faded away or become parodies of themselves, this beautiful facility has been constantly upgraded and improved. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Here is a brief excerpt from their website: "In 1989, The American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums (AZA) extended accreditation to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, thereby elevating the institution to a select list of facilities throughout the nation recognized for the quality of their collections and the care afforded them."

I photographed the dragonfly sitting on the eye of an alligator from the boardwalk at the Farm using a Nikon D70 with a 75-300mm Nikkor lens (effective focal length of 450mm when zoomed fully) and weirdly enough I was able to get dozens of shots of this odd couple (the dragonfly kept taking off and coming back to the same eye!).

And that's one of the benefits of a nice animal park like this: you can get close up shots of animals that you might never get in the wild. I've been fortunate enough to photograph alligators in the wild in Flordia many times and it's a real thrill, but I've never gotten so close to one that I could get a shot of a dragonfly napping on its eye.

If you're ever in the St. Augustine area, be sure to pay the Alligator Farm a visit--it's not only interesting and educational, but it's a very pleasant place to spend the day. And there are precious few zoos in the world I can say that about.

Comments

[Ellen McKnight]

Hi Jeff,

I enjoyed your commentary on the alligator farm. Are there any restrictions on using tripods there?

Thanks. Ellen