Crocodile wrangler rates 12 crocodile and alligator attacks in movies and TV

Insider

Frank Robb, a crocodile and alligator expert, rates crocodile and alligator attacks in movies and television shows for realism.  He rates crocodile bites in "Jumanji" (1995), starring Robin Williams; "Lake Placid" (1999); and the James Bond film "Live and Let Die" (1973). Robb also rates alligator strikes in "Loki" S1E4 (2021); "Crawl" (2019); "The Big Short" (2015), featuring Brad Pitt; and "Happy Gilmore" (1996), starring Adam Sandler. He discusses crocodile hunting and trapping behaviors in "Crocodile Dundee" (1986) and "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles" (2001). He breaks down alligator anatomy, including their teeth, skin, and tails, in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984), starring Harrison Ford; "Adaptation" (2002), featuring Nicolas Cage; and "Alligator" (1980).  Robb has been catching nuisance alligators and crocodiles for the state of Florida for over 29 years. He operates the environmental education and research nonprofit EEARSS, or Environmental Education Awareness Research Support and Services.  You can find Frank Robb on Instagram at www.instagram.com/alligatorrobb You can learn more about EEARSS at: https://eearss.org/

Transcript

00:00 [dramatic music]

00:01 Give me the ball, alligator.

00:03 [dramatic music]

00:05 [screams]

00:06 Take the stroke and move on,

00:07 or drop a new ball somewhere else.

00:09 A gator can close its jaws faster than you can react to it.

00:11 My name is Frank Robb.

00:12 I've called alligators for the state of Florida

00:14 through their nuisance alligator program

00:15 for going on 29 years now.

00:17 Today, we're gonna look at alligator and crocodile attacks

00:19 in TV and movies and judge how real they are.

00:22 [dramatic music]

00:28 Their sight underwater is pretty good.

00:30 It's not as good as it is above water,

00:32 but it's good enough where if they wanna find you,

00:34 they're gonna find you.

00:35 [dramatic music]

00:38 That is how they lay in the water.

00:43 They'll lay just kinda chilled out

00:44 with their arms hanging out from both sides

00:46 and the tail kinda back there.

00:47 They can sense something below them moving around

00:50 and not be looking at it.

00:51 [dramatic music]

00:57 [alligator shrieking]

00:58 You could be Michael Phelps in your prime

01:00 and you're not gonna out-swim an alligator.

01:01 This ain't gonna happen.

01:02 They swim faster underwater than they do above water

01:05 by quite a ways.

01:06 They can swim up to probably about 27 miles per hour.

01:09 They can get going pretty quick.

01:11 [alligator shrieking]

01:14 I've heard so many arguments over the years

01:18 about how to get away from an alligator safely.

01:20 You're running zigzags or you're running a straight line.

01:23 They're not gonna chase you.

01:24 It's not something they're gonna do,

01:25 but if you're trying to get away from one,

01:27 you just make yourself big,

01:29 you make some noise, and you back away.

01:30 Gators in homes are very common.

01:32 Now, chasing you around under your home or in your home

01:35 or chasing you around anywhere outside your home,

01:38 that's not realistic.

01:39 The last one I got at somebody's house,

01:40 this was during a hurricane,

01:42 and whenever she turned around to go back in her house,

01:45 here was this alligator that had walked in,

01:47 was on top of a shelf in her bedroom

01:50 trying to get out the bedroom window, trying to escape.

01:52 He wanted nothing to do with her.

01:53 He was trying to get away.

01:54 The last thing they wanna do

01:54 is have an interaction with you.

01:56 I would rate these clips from "Kraal"

01:57 on a scale from one to 10 with a very solid one.

02:01 For "Kraal," I actually did the safety tips

02:04 that came out with the DVD.

02:05 - Holy Spirit of Sobek.

02:11 - Whoever worked on the anatomy on this had it spot on.

02:14 I mean, they have the things, the ISOs around his mouth.

02:16 They're sensory organs, so alligators have those.

02:19 They look like little dots around their face.

02:21 On crocodiles, they have those little dots

02:23 or these sensory organs,

02:25 which are like underwater radar or sonar.

02:27 Their eyesight is on par with any bird or prey.

02:30 I mean, they have very, very good eyesight,

02:31 and they have something we call a nicotating membrane,

02:34 which will fold over their eyes.

02:35 It's a second eyelid.

02:36 It's their underwater goggles.

02:37 They would pick you up from underwater and pull you down,

02:44 and there would be no him looking at you beforehand.

02:47 He's not gonna let you know he's there.

02:48 He's just gonna pick you up and take you.

02:52 - No! - I'm trying!

02:53 - A crocodile that size, yes,

02:56 could bite through pretty much whatever he wants.

02:57 People look at 'em via drone sometimes,

02:59 and they get their drones eaten quite often.

03:02 People get too close to the animal.

03:04 It's almost like they're harassing it,

03:06 and they'll get tired of it 'cause they'll pick a bird up.

03:09 They'll just reach up there and grab it and pull it down.

03:11 That firearm with an animal that size

03:18 is not gonna make a whole lot of difference.

03:19 They have these things in their back called osteoderms.

03:22 It's a solid piece of their back.

03:23 This is how they thermoregulate.

03:24 Each one of these are connected together

03:26 to make a big piece of armor,

03:27 and their blood circulates through this

03:29 is how they get warm or cold.

03:31 A bullet hitting one of these on an animal that size

03:34 would make no difference.

03:35 Again, you imagine an animal that size

03:37 would have a tooth probably the size of your hand.

03:40 They bite each other,

03:41 and it's a lot worse than any bullet could ever be.

03:43 Those would not be two things you'd find in the same area

03:50 by any means, but if you have a crocodile

03:52 who is as big as that one's supposed to be,

03:54 if there was a bear in the area he was in

03:55 and it was on the shoreline,

03:57 if he wanted a bear, he would have himself a bear.

03:59 Our American crocodile is a big fish eater.

04:02 They like fish, but they'll also eat small mammals.

04:04 Pretty much whatever they can get their mouth on,

04:05 they're happy to have.

04:06 People are not one of those things.

04:08 I'd give it a six, give it a solid six.

04:11 You wouldn't be holding a snare like that with bait in it

04:18 and hoping the animal would come over to you

04:20 and go into the snare and take the bait

04:22 while you're holding it all.

04:23 It's not how that works.

04:25 While saltwater crocodiles get a reputation

04:27 for being very aggressive,

04:28 if you have something dead out there hanging out for him,

04:31 he might need a minute to think about it.

04:33 It's not gonna be something that's gonna happen immediately.

04:36 What he's using there is a cable snare.

04:41 It's something we use for alligators and crocodiles

04:44 both when we're doing research.

04:46 The way it works is you put this thing around

04:49 an animal's neck and it cinches shut

04:51 and you can pull the animal to you and catch it.

04:54 It's not the way you would really wanna approach

04:56 a saltwater crocodile, especially an animal of that size.

04:59 So if we're dealing with alligators or crocodiles,

05:01 what we typically do is we'll catch them on a fishing rod.

05:04 Then you can use a rope or a snare.

05:06 Do what you need to do with them

05:07 and then let them back loose.

05:08 It's pretty easy to let the snare loose.

05:17 You would never wanna attach it to your boat.

05:20 Just kind of ridiculous.

05:21 So I mean, no part of the clip really made any sense.

05:24 There's been instances where we've had alligators

05:32 bite people's boats.

05:33 Those are animals that have been fed

05:35 and they're associating these people

05:36 who are out in their boats fishing

05:37 with the fish they're bringing in

05:39 'cause they're like, "Hey, here's an easy way

05:40 "to catch food.

05:41 "I'll wait 'til this guy pulls a fish in,

05:43 "then I'll go over there and try to grab it

05:44 "before it gets in his boat."

05:46 So sometimes that kind of thing happens,

05:48 but it's not typical by any means.

05:50 A crocodile that size, again,

05:51 historically they got that big,

05:53 could take a boat down for sure.

05:55 Realistically, there wouldn't be a whole lot of reason

05:57 for him to do that.

05:58 This clip would be rated a nice solid one.

06:01 The way that it was handled from the beginning,

06:03 no part of it was realistic.

06:04 - That's alligator for growling.

06:08 - Alligators communicate by a series of bellows,

06:11 growls, hisses.

06:13 They do communicate for sure with each other that way.

06:16 And it sounds a little bit something like this.

06:18 (alligator squeaking)

06:22 For sure, an alligator can jump like that

06:31 and grab something without a doubt.

06:33 I mean, if you have one cornered somewhere

06:35 where he can't get out of it

06:36 and he's trying to defend himself,

06:37 yeah, they're gonna lunge at you,

06:38 they're gonna jump at you,

06:39 and they're gonna snap at you,

06:40 but it's not the situation they wanna find themselves in.

06:42 It's pretty realistic.

06:43 I'd say, let's give that a eight.

06:46 (alligator squeaking)

06:49 This is supposed to be in India,

06:53 and they're showing American alligators in India.

06:55 It would either be the Indian gharial

06:58 or the saltwater crocodile

07:00 you can find in some places in India as well.

07:02 So they got the species wrong.

07:04 (alligator squeaking)

07:08 They're not a communal eater whatsoever.

07:10 Those animals are used to eating together.

07:12 Alligators in the wild,

07:13 you're not gonna find sharing a meal.

07:15 Does not happen.

07:16 If they've got something

07:17 and they wanna rip a piece of it off,

07:18 that's how they'll take their prey

07:20 and rip a piece off

07:21 in order to have that right then and there.

07:22 (alligator squeaking)

07:26 Alligators and crocodiles both,

07:28 they can digest just about anything.

07:30 They have something we call gastroliths in their stomach.

07:32 They're eating bones.

07:33 If they can digest bones,

07:34 then a piece of cloth is nothing.

07:36 I'd give that a two.

07:37 If you factored in the way they were eating together,

07:39 I mean, as soon as you saw that,

07:41 you'd immediately know that is not a wild situation.

07:43 That's somewhere in a farm system or in a zoo.

07:46 (alligator squeaking)

07:49 It's very common

07:52 that one will kind of make his way through an area calmly.

07:55 If he's just kind of motoring around,

07:57 if they're going real fast somewhere,

07:58 they're not gonna do it on top of the water.

07:59 They're gonna be stealthy about it and do it underwater.

08:02 (alligator squeaking)

08:05 Crocodiles are ridiculously strong.

08:09 They're a very powerful animal.

08:11 There's no person on this planet

08:13 that can match strength with one.

08:14 There would be no reason for him

08:15 to go knock someone off there.

08:16 That crocodile could have easily reached that chandelier

08:19 with no problems whatsoever.

08:20 You're looking at a crocodile that's 15 plus feet long.

08:24 Yeah, no, you're not safe.

08:25 (alligator squeaking)

08:28 There's a big misconception

08:31 that their mouth shuts very easily

08:34 and stays shut very easily with a little bit of pressure.

08:37 That is not true.

08:37 They have a giant, enormous amount of power

08:40 in opening their mouth as well.

08:42 We use tape.

08:43 So we'll use, electricians call it electrical tape.

08:46 It's really alligator tape.

08:47 We use that to wrap their mouths up

08:49 and we'll usually cover their eyes at the same time

08:51 'cause it makes them a little bit more relaxed.

08:52 (alligator squeaking)

08:55 I don't care if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger in your prime,

08:59 you're not getting away with doing that.

09:00 He'd fling you off like a bug

09:02 and you'd be lunched so quick.

09:04 I would give this a one.

09:05 While it was a lot of fun, it was not realistic.

09:08 Realistic looking animal, not realistic looking actions.

09:11 (water splashing)

09:14 - Don't (beep) with that!

09:14 - (beep)

09:16 Gators in pools are a very common thing.

09:17 Traditionally, it's because of one bigger gator

09:21 will run the smaller one out

09:22 and put him in a pool where he's trying to escape

09:24 where he knows he has his own little secret spot,

09:26 his own little alligator haven.

09:27 Down there in Florida,

09:28 we're surrounded by a lot of saltwater.

09:30 Alligators don't have salt excretion glands

09:32 like crocodiles do.

09:34 So they have to be able to go from freshwater body

09:36 to freshwater body.

09:37 A lot of times that's what it is.

09:39 When they're moving, it's an easy spot to drop off

09:41 and kind of chill out for a day and recover.

09:43 (upbeat music)

09:46 That is realistic.

09:49 The alligator would just kind of go,

09:50 "Whatever, buddy.

09:52 "I'm chilling out, man.

09:53 "It's my relax day.

09:54 "It's my spa day."

09:55 They're gonna be underwater most of the time.

09:57 I'll usually kind of have a conversation with them,

10:00 get them to kind of put their head through a rope

10:02 and catch them that way.

10:03 I'd give that one a nine.

10:04 Alligator being in a pool, very common thing.

10:07 Him turning and snapping at the guy

10:09 when he was seeing the pool,

10:11 that part about it was kind of goofy

10:12 'cause he's gonna sink and go hide.

10:14 Only takes one time feeding an alligator or crocodile

10:25 for them to go, "Man, this is an easy way to make a living.

10:28 "Just hanging around the people,

10:29 "let them throw me things

10:30 "and I can save all that energy

10:32 "I would be using otherwise."

10:33 They're not gonna go after you,

10:34 so they get very used to people.

10:36 You should never be feeding wildlife in general,

10:38 definitely not crocodilians

10:40 'cause they associate people with that food very quickly

10:43 and that's how terrible things happen.

10:46 It's not necessarily you that might not be worried about it,

10:49 but the next person to come up there

10:50 might not know that's a fed animal.

10:52 In the wild, American crocodiles

11:00 are actually even more secretive and ghost-like

11:03 than the American alligator.

11:03 They want nothing to do with you.

11:05 They're a very, very secretive animal.

11:06 They would not approach you the way

11:08 these are approaching here that have been fed.

11:09 As soon as something hit the water,

11:11 they're gonna be looking at it like it's food.

11:13 If you tried to run and jump across crocodiles,

11:18 you'd only do it once.

11:19 It doesn't work out so well for you.

11:21 If you're raiding it,

11:22 looking at the realistic possibility

11:25 of crocodiles and alligators

11:26 approaching you in an alligator farm,

11:29 it's pretty realistic.

11:30 If you're looking at the realistic ability

11:31 of running across crocodiles,

11:33 that's not gonna happen.

11:34 So you gotta give that one probably a solid seven.

11:36 Gators on golf courses are a very common thing.

11:43 Pretty much any golf course you're on in Florida

11:45 will have gators in it.

11:46 There are a lot of behaviors that change completely

11:49 when an alligator's on a golf course.

11:51 They get fed a lot.

11:52 The ones that aren't getting fed

11:54 are getting used to people walking by them

11:56 and golfing around them and moving around them all the time.

11:58 So the alligators get complacent,

12:00 the people get complacent.

12:02 - Give me the ball, alligator.

12:03 - Take the stroke and move on

12:07 or drop a new ball somewhere else.

12:09 You don't play those kind of games.

12:10 A gator can close its jaws faster than you can react to it.

12:13 There's this misconception about alligator wrestling.

12:21 That's not a real thing.

12:22 That's an entertainment thing.

12:24 There's no type of reality involved in that.

12:26 As my uncle always says, you don't tempt the devil.

12:28 There's no reason to tempt things like that.

12:29 I'd give it a one.

12:30 The way the clip played out

12:31 with him jumping in the water after it and wrestling it,

12:34 headbutting it and elbowing it,

12:35 you wouldn't be coming back from that.

12:37 He jumps up kind of from a front and above it

12:47 and just jumps on the animal,

12:49 puts a knife through its skull plate.

12:51 No part of that makes any sense.

12:52 They can, they do have a blind spot directly behind them,

12:55 but that's not how this was approached.

12:57 Their head is not a weak spot at all.

12:59 And if you watch this clip,

13:01 he actually puts the knife through the animal's skull plate,

13:04 which I don't care if you're Wolverine,

13:06 you're not putting a knife

13:07 through that thing's skull plate.

13:08 That's a super, super thick bone

13:12 that a knife is not gonna go through.

13:14 For realism, that is another solid one.

13:16 There's been so little turned out

13:18 in the movie world with crocodiles.

13:20 And it's crazy when you're saying

13:22 Lake Placid is the most realistic one,

13:24 but so far it's where it's at.

13:27 (dramatic music)

13:30 In Florida, where we're at,

13:33 I get alligators out of culverts

13:34 or water structures all the time.

13:36 There's all these water structures between neighborhoods.

13:39 That is part of their environment.

13:40 That's a place that they spend a lot of their time in.

13:42 It's a very common thing.

13:43 If people realized how many alligators

13:45 were under their neighborhoods,

13:47 it would probably freak them out as well.

13:48 I've caught hundreds of alligators

13:54 out of situations exactly like that

13:56 where sometimes it's a 36-inch pipe,

13:58 but sometimes it's a pipe you can duck walk through.

14:01 And you walk through there and you meet him

14:03 and you have a conversation with him.

14:04 He goes for a walk back out with you.

14:06 Normally, when you're,

14:12 'cause you're usually crawling through,

14:13 you crawl hands and knees on 'til you meet the animal.

14:16 You get a rope on him and you pull him back out.

14:18 I'll call the sheriff's office or the fire department

14:20 or call a couple of friends and have them help me

14:22 get him back out the top.

14:24 They do act different in different situations.

14:26 Like, you come across an alligator in a culvert pipe,

14:28 he's gonna stand his ground.

14:30 He's gonna say, "This is my spot, my area.

14:33 "You turn around and go back.

14:34 "I'm not gonna turn around and go back.

14:35 "They're not gonna run away from you.

14:36 "They're gonna stand their ground.

14:37 "You better start backpedaling or hurry."

14:39 I've never heard about a situation

14:46 where an alligator used his tail to knock somebody over.

14:48 When you're in the middle of catching one,

14:51 when you're walking up behind him to get on him,

14:53 they will sweep their tail back and forth

14:54 to try to keep you away from him,

14:55 but they're not out there trying to knock you out

14:58 with their tail, not the way it works.

14:59 It's strong, yeah, it's strong for sure.

15:01 Their tail's strong.

15:02 Not something to be overwhelmingly concerned about

15:05 by any means.

15:06 You wanna worry about the sharp end.

15:07 I'll give this one an eight

15:08 because it's an alligator in a culvert pipe.

15:09 Very common thing.

15:10 They're most active at dawn and dusk,

15:15 and yeah, at nighttime is usually when they're walking out,

15:18 when they're going out and feeding.

15:19 It's funny, some of the biggest alligators I've ever caught

15:21 were in the smallest water bodies you could ever imagine.

15:24 Maybe in a couple inches of water

15:26 and kind of laying in mud,

15:27 and you'd never know they were there.

15:29 You put yourself in--

15:30 (water splashing)

15:34 It's not uncommon to see them in a place like that

15:36 as they're kind of traveling through,

15:37 they're looking to pick something up.

15:38 There are people that go fishing and duck hunting

15:41 and stuff like that.

15:42 They will walk through an area sometimes like that

15:44 and step on one or kick one and take a bite from that.

15:48 Usually it's a mistake bite where they'll turn around

15:50 and bite something and go,

15:51 "Oh, (beep) that was not something I was looking to bite."

15:54 (water splashing)

15:56 Having one roll you up and kill you,

16:01 that's taking it a whole different step past reality.

16:04 If there was deep water nearby,

16:05 the animal's gonna take you and pull you to the deeper water.

16:08 It's not necessarily gonna be rolling around with you.

16:10 Pretty not realistic.

16:11 Just not things you need to worry about,

16:13 but I give it a two 'cause it is semi-possible.

16:17 My favorite scenes I watched today

16:18 were Lake Placid and Alligator.

16:20 Lake Placid, just because of how realistic looking

16:23 that animal was.

16:24 And then Alligator there at the very end,

16:26 the film Alligator.

16:28 Alligators and culvert pipes,

16:29 if people had any idea, it would melt your minds.

16:32 (water splashing)

16:33 (water splashing)

16:36 (water splashing)

16:38 (water splashing)

16:41 (water splashing)

16:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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