Aug 19 later in the pm

We hadn't planned to see this but we had some time after the Sand Dunes National Park and it was on the way back to Alamosa so we stopped at a place called "Colorado Gators".

Apparently, per the website above, in the 80s they had begun to raise Talapia in the geothermal water they obtained when they took over some property.

They bought some alligators to become garbage disposals. The locals started to come to see the alligators (as they are such a photogenic creature). People started to bring them live alligators that had unfortunately been bought as pets and had grown to untenable size.

Eventually, they bought other animals. They have many huge tortoises and some ostriches (last image) and various other things.

The second image is me holding a live gator. The gator is small and has already been fed but still you have to grip the neck close to the mouth. This is a similar hold to the Alpaca on Aug 15, although the gator in this image is about 1 year old and doesn't nurse so much as bite and swollow.

The third image is of an albino aligator. There are only a few dozen of these in the world and they have one there.