On to the Land of the Free...the Brave...the Extremely Noisy and Smelly and Invasive, Yet Somehow Also Cute, Feral Pigs

In the last post we related our adventures with Captain Ryan aboard a boat, exploring the wilds of Louisiana's swampland armed with nothing more than hot dogs and marshmallows to keep the wildlife at bay.*

We moved, cautiously, further into swampland, knowing that potentially greater danger lay there, primarily from other boat captains with greater stockpiles of attractive food offerings because they hadn't wasted them all on the previous alligators.

Before we move on from alligators, however, we should relate some educational points shared with us by Captain Ryan. For starters, one participant inquired how to tell a male alligator from a female. The captain explained that females rarely grow past 10 feet or so, so an animal 12 feet or more is almost assuredly a male. Great, the participant said, but what about smaller alligators? How could you tell with them?

Captain Ryan, as we have seen previously, is not one to shy away from danger. So he bravely waded into a discussion of alligator anatomy, and informed us that the only foolproof way to tell the gender of an alligator is to stick one's hand into the animal's [insert name of very private alligator part, which the good captain ably pronounced but which I had never heard before and promptly forgot].

There was a collective Ohhhh, and then the captain explained that “we will not be seeing that particular procedure today."

There was a collective sigh of relief, and no more questions for a while.

It is hard to remember whether we saw or heard the wild pigs first. Likely our first clue was the overpowering smell. Wild pigs, as we had ample cause to observe, have no regard for hygiene. None. Zero. The ones we came upon deep in the swamp possibly exhibited less than zero regard for hygiene. They were busily fighting over marshmallows from a couple of other boats who had gotten there first, but they soon headed over to fight over our marshmallows and to show off their disregard for hygienic practices.

These pigs pretty much disregarded everything—respect for trees, each other, the rails on the boat that clearly indicated they were to stay on the other side—nothing was sacred. If they thought one of us was holding out on a few more marshmallows, they certainly had no compunction about trying to climb aboard and wrest them from us. They hooked their hooves over the railing, thoughtfully sharing with us mud, dirty water, moss, and whatever other unspeakable things they could dredge up from the swamp.

The more bloodthirsty among us wondered what happens in a fight of Pig vs. Alligator. I mean, gators are strong and all, but as I may have mentioned, the pigs had the poor hygiene thing going on. Even gators might not be able to withstand such a biological weapon.

The captain assured us that larger alligators, like Scarface, could take down a large pig. Most of us fervently hoped it would not happen that particular day.

The one bright spot was the baby pigs, who ran around on the land squealing, "You never let us get any marshmallows!" Although we all knew what lay ahead for them, judging from their parents—a body weight gain of several hundred pounds, along with exponential nasal growth—we couldn't help but notice, at this stage, how cute they were.

Is it too much to expect that a new generation will, unlike their parents, eschew mud, dirt, and filth? Perhaps so, but we can always hope.

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*Okay, so the treats actually put us more in danger, because they attracted the alligators right up to the boat, whereas without the treats we probably looked better to them from afar.

Marshmallows and hot dogs, the preferred food of alligators (when humans aren't available)

The Princess and Hero have recently returned from wrestling alligators, wild boar, and hordes of noisy tourists. The tourists were definitely the most fearsome.

This excitement all took place in New Orleans, where the Princess was sent for work and where the Hero joined her afterward because he could not WAIT to take part in something called a swamp tour. Delightful though that sounded, we privately agreed to think of it as a bayou tour, which sounded much more sanitary. And even, dare we say it, romantic, in the sense in which the Princess Bride Fire Swamp was romantic. 

We encountered fierce wildlife on our bayou tour, though they were no match for brave Captain Ryan and his trusty band of marshmallows and hot dogs. Once our boat was deep in alligator territory, the captain placed pieces of these treats on sticks and, instead of holding them to a campfire, dangled them in front of 800-pound alligators. It turns out alligators really like hot dogs and marshmallows.* At least when no other flesh conveniently presents itself.

We wonder who first discovered that alligators enjoy marshmallows, and more important, how they discovered this. We imagine some hapless swamp visitor, about to be charged and eaten by Scarface—this is the name given to an actual alligator we saw on the tour—trying desperately to distract him, and finally throwing an entire bag of marshmallows at the animal. The tourist holds his breath while he waits to see if his offering is accepted. The alligator sniffs the treats and chomps his way contentedly through them, prompting a sigh of relief from the tourist. And then Scarface eats him too.

Probably the real story is not nearly as dramatic, but however it happened, we are left with the delightful fact that alligators will come right up to your boat if there are marshmallows involved. They seem to like hot dogs all right, too, although a nearby boat with a rival captain had only hot dogs to offer, and his boat was not nearly as successful as ours at attracting customers. Of course, this may have had something to do with Captain Ryan's tendency to swish his hand in the water right in front of the alligators while giving forth a time-honored call: "Here, alligator!"

Conventional wisdom, even common sense, dictates that one keep one's appendages far from those jaws of death. But Captain Ryan did not operate by conventional wisdom, or even by common sense, but apparently by the law of Astonish the Tourists so They Give Better Tips. So several times he tapped on an alligator's nose to get it to open its jaws for a treat, which alternately provoked exclamations of "Oooo" and stimulated brainstorming for what we, the Tourists Who Will Not Give Tips to a Dead Captain, would do in the event the good captain's charm and hot dogs and marshmallows failed to satisfy the alligators, and we would find ourselves stranded. We doubted the competing captain would deign to help us. "Serves 'im right," he would probably mutter, and chug off.

After Scarface, who was 12 feet long and weighed a bit more after visiting our boat than before, we jaded tourists were on the hunt for something more dangerous. But even the most hardened among us could not resist the next animal we saw, a baby raccoon. Raccoons, too, appreciate marshmallows thrown in their direction, although they are smart enough to know that if they venture into the water to get one, their marshmallow-eating days are over. Accordingly, the captain tossed some up on the bank for Rodney**, who dutifully looked adorable as he held the treats in his paws and consumed them. 

Raccoons cheer for cold weather, because the alligators more or less shut down when temperatures reach around 50 degrees. At that point the raccoons can frolic about in the water and, without fear of molestation, look for marshmallows as much as they please. Unfortunately for them, there aren't many tourists or tour captains out in 50-degree weather, but there is always the hope that the alligators left behind a few overlooked, if soggy, marshmallows.

Next post: On to the Land of the Free, the Brave, the Extremely Noisy and Smelly and Invasive, Yet Somehow Also Cute, Feral Pigs

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*Photos will be forthcoming, as soon as we can talk the alligators into releasing them. Hey, they really do eat pretty much anything.

**Rodney's real name is being withheld to avoid detection by Scarface. Also because we can't remember what his real name was.