baby gator petting pool

The homepage of Insta-Gator Ranch is perfectly clear from the start that the gators you can play with and hold for the requisite photo op are not all going to grow up and be released to the wild to become the scourge of Labradors. If the description of a visit to the ranch weren't clear enough ("Your guided tour gives you a first-hand account of the Louisiana Alligator Industry, from hatchling to handbag."), perhaps the fact that "Adopt A Gator" appears directly above "Gator Recipes" in their website's features might help. During the visit, they talk a whole lot about how farming gators protects the wild ones from being overharvested (and A+ to them for having some actual transparency, unlike the rest of the industrial meat industry) and it sounds like they're doing a lot of good in that way. It's still a little disturbing to stroke and photograph something that will ultimately be dinner . . . but I think that says more about how far we Americans have gone to free ourselves from knowledge of our food production than anything else. I'd much rather have the opportunity to be squeamish petting dinner than be kept from any knowledge about where dinner comes from at all.