Chris gillette biography

When a young man dips into a man-made, freshwater lagoon in Homestead, there’s already a 9-foot, pound American alligator waiting for him. For 30 minutes, man and beast wade peacefully in each other’s presence, separated by a metal gate.

It’s an experience made possible by alligator handler Chris Gillette, who facilitates these first-of-their-kind underwater gator tours at Everglades Outpost, a 2-and-a-half-acre wildlife refuge near Everglades National Park.

“People want to do this, and I needed to find a way to be able to satisfy this demand,” Gillette says.

“That’s when I came up with this idea for people to do this in a responsible way. We’re in no way encouraging people to ever interact with or try to swim with a wild alligator.”

That’s because alligators are an apex predator with 80 sharp teeth and one of the strongest bite forces ever recorded.

But between the warm- and cold-blooded creatures in Gillette’s lagoon, it’s actually the gator (“Casper,” as Gillette calls him) w