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Others' Trash Sounds Like Sarasota Gator's Treasure

Sarasota Jungle Gardens

Caretakers at the attraction aren't sure whether Attitude the alligator is in love or in fear.

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 17, 2009

Updated: 02/17/2009 03:12 pm

Attitude, the alligator, gets amorous whenever her friend, the garbage truck, rumbles by. Or she gets angry, thinking an intrusive reptile is lurking in her territory.

Either way, the 25-year-old American alligator - the queen mum at Sarasota Jungle Gardens - acts weird.

Twice a week, a city garbage truck growls nearby and hoists garbage bins into its cavernous maw, Attitude, who's been at the park for about 10 years, jerks her head up, hoists her tail and lets out a bellow for the ages.

Caretakers at the attraction aren't sure whether she's in love or in fear. She may be mistaking the truck's low-level rumble for another gator's love song, to which she is singing second-part harmony, or protecting her territory from a scaly intruder.

"It's one or the other," said Chris Costanzo, marketing director of the park. "But the way she's carrying on, we're pretty sure it's a mating thing."

Zoo caretakers began noticing the whacky behavior two or three weeks ago.

"We just figured out that it was the garbage truck that was making her in love," Costanzo said.

It's a forbidden, foolish love, though, Costanzo said. Attitude, who is about 12 feet long and tips the scales at a big-boned 600 pounds, has never seen what makes the rumbling, reverberating sounds. The truck comes no closer than about 500 feet, Costanzo said, a long way from Attitude's pen.

"She hears very well," Costanzo said. "It's the vibrations or the noise that titillates her."

Other gators in the park don't behave this way, but Attitude is the matriarch.

"She's the big gator, our big girl," Costanzo said. "The little one aren't in on the action. One other female is about 5 years old, and she's just not interested. She's more interested in food."

Attitude's thoughts of food take a back burner when it comes to the trash hauler.

"She is ready to rock," Costanzo said, "with her big green metal boyfriend."

Actually, said Frank Mazzotti, wildlife ecology and conservation professor at the University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, Attitude's behavior is not all that surprising.

"I've been at Gatorland when semis roll by," he said, "and that sets off a chorus of bellowing like you wouldn't believe; same for jet airplanes going overhead; or an airboat engine. It's all about the noise and subsonic vibrations. They trigger a response. They're not all that different from humans."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760.

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