By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent

FLORIDA CITY, Fla. — Florida City is the last stop on the mainland before entering the Florida Keys. The alligators don’t know that there is any dividing line, though, and more than 2,000 gators are quite at home on Charles Thibos’ Everglades Alligator Farm.

Thibos didn’t grow up learning how to raise alligators; this was a later-in-life career change decision for him and his wife.

“My wife, Debbie, said this was my second mid-life crisis,” Charles said. “We had a business in Tallahassee, and her parents were here. We looked around, and this was for sale in 1991. Then Hurricane Andrew came and blew it all away.”

Together the couple was able to clear the debris, and they had the farm running again in three weeks. The quick turnaround turned out to be a business boon.

“We were the only entertainment here after the hurricane,” Charles shared.

With the farm the only game in town, visitors flocked to this unusual venue. That was a life-changing event for the couple.
“Debbie was a guidance counselor, and I had a packing-and-shipping business,” Charles said. “We wanted to find something fun.”

The alligator farm fit the bill. The farm had been around for almost three decades and is a staple in the Florida City area. Raising alligators looks tricky, but Charles said the animals “are pretty self-sufficient.”

“The eggs incubate in about 60 days, then we feed them,” Charles said. “We take the gators for shows sometimes. We get a lot of requests.”

Many of the eggs are hatched from alligators in captivity, but they also have a permit to collect them from the wild, and those eggs are more viable, Charles said. The gators on the farm may be there for quite some time because they have a lifespan of 75-80 years.

While at one time alligators were considered almost extinct, that is no longer true.

“There are now over 1 1/2 million gators out there. With the spread of civilization, we are always getting calls. Our trappers go all the way to the Carolinas. There are more farms in Louisiana than in Florida.”

Although Charles and Debbie work with the gators, they have an animal trainer that they said also works as an animal rescue pro. Although the gators are sometimes sold as meat, or for their hides, these days they are more for entertainment venue than a consumer product. The hide market has been up and down and not provided a very stable market.

“We are mostly a tourist attraction,” Charles said. “We’ve done so well with tourists we concentrate on that.”

Charles laughed and added a stat about the tourist safety ratio.
“We have a 98 percent survival rate,” he explained. “We are really proud of that.”

Along with the alligators, the farm also has its share of snakes.
“We have the snakes, too; we have a mishmash collection,” Charles added.

Charles said there is a big problem in the Everglades because people get pythons and let them lose in the wild. Without any natural predators, they grow to outstanding size and are spreading.
“We had a 22-foot python,” Charles explained. “We are trying to figure out how to get rid of them in the park.”

Years ago the television show Gentle Ben caught the attention of the public, and it has never gone away, Charles said.

“Reruns bring the Germans and Europeans,” he added.
Visitors have a lot of things to see and do at the Everglades Alligator Farm. They can visit the breeding pond and see the growing pens where the alligators are in various stages of sizes. They average a growth rate of a foot a year. Both native alligators and imported crocodiles are on display along with a variety of wildlife. The alligators are native to the area while the crocodiles are mostly salt water reptiles.

There are shows that include both alligator and snake shows, and best of all is the airboat ride that takes visitors out into the everglades on a thrilling ride just like Ben’s dad drove on the hit television show. The boats are run by a powerful Eldorado Cadillac engine.

Charles and Debbie are they glad they made the change south into this unique career change.

“My favorite part is the fun,” Charles said. “It is so great to see new things.”

Open Monday – Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 305-247-2628 or log onto www.Everglades.com to learn about details of the farm.