By Karah-Leigh Hancock
I met Chris Hart backstage at the Chris Tomlin concert at Wild Adventures a few weekends ago. I was standing beside him when he pulled out a baby alligator from a backpack and I immediately freaked out.
While I don’t have a fear of alligators or crocodiles, I do have a strong fear of snakes and talked to Hart about this.
That conversation led me to realize what an interesting person he seemed to be.
At Wild Adventures, Hart is the host of the “Creature Feature” show which is held in the Alapaha Preserve area of the theme park. It’s not just a show where you see creepy, slimy reptiles, but a show where you can see a cute Kinkajou named Copper and learn more about wildlife conservation.
Hart has more than 15 years of experience in wildlife conservation and has been on numerous television shows on Fox, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Nickelodeon and different ABC and NBC affiliates.
Hart’s story began in Savannah where he was born and raised. He lived there until he was 16 years old. His family worked with traveling shows and Hart wanted to get out of that aspect of working with animals in shows.
He took a job with the Okefenokee Swamp in Waycross, working with different animals such as alligators in their natural habitat.
While in Waycross, Hart caught a lucky break when the Discovery Channel became interested in him.
“Within my first two years there, the Discovery Channel came in to use the park to film,” Hart said. “They just wanted to use b-roll of the wild alligators swimming. They watched my show so they wanted to do a documentary with me.”
From there, they wanted to film more with him, working with other animals such as bears and cougars.
After working in Waycross, Hart began working at Wild Adventures, where he worked for five years. He then moved to Orlando to work and has been back in Valdosta with Wild Adventures for two years.
During Hart’s show at Wild Adventures, he gives the audience a lot of information on all of the animals shown, especially snakes and alligators.
He tries to help people who are scared of snakes overcome their fears by letting them know that snakes aren’t looking for them. He lets people know that snakes can’t see more than 24 inches in front of them. A snake also can’t hear but picks up vibrations by putting its chin to the ground, which is how they know something is coming towards them.
Only nine people died last year from venomous snake bites while more than a thousand people died from food poisoning in American restaurants, Hart claimed.
While he works with different animals and has been bitten by five venomous snakes, the worst injury occurred two years ago while he was in Florida filming a wildlife documentary for PAX-TV. He lost his thumb after being chased 42 yards by an alligator.
“I can’t say chased because I was walking,” Hart said. “I was walking and my hands were swinging. He just jumped up and [got] me. The camera man couldn’t get even get the breath in to say, ‘Chris,’ before the alligator had me.”
In Hart’s show, he tells the audience that an alligator can run the length of a football field in 2.7 seconds.
“It was fast,” Hart said. “I didn’t even know until I looked down and blood was spurting out everywhere.”
Even though he’s been attacked by an alligator, they are still his favorite animal to work with.
“I think they (alligators) draw a crowd,” Hart said. “I think people are really interested in them and not as afraid of them as they are the snakes. Even though an alligator could do a million times more damage than a snake could ever do to you, but there’s something that ... they really, really draw people over.”
Hart can also read alligators better than snakes.
“Snakes are really unpredictable because you never know when they’re going to attack,” he said. “But an alligator is pretty much going to let you know, ‘I’m going to get you.’”
“I’m really not wild about big cats,” Hart said. “You just never know what’s going to happen.
“I’m a firm believer that everybody has what they can do,” he said. “Like Chris Kilpatrick who does our tiger series, he can, but he won’t mess with that alligator.”
Hart believes that big cats have split personalities and only certain people can read them.
“I think it’s just something inside of everyone,” he said. “But for me, one day they’re this, and one day they’re that.”
When Hart isn’t showing off snakes or alligators at Wild Adventures, he’s home with his wife, Amanda, and their daughter, Zoey.
“My daughter wants me to bring the anaconda back home,” he said. “She loves it. She likes snakes and loves Gutter (one of his alligators). She thinks it’s her brother. She rides him around like a horse.”
For safety reasons, Gutter’s mouth is taped when his daughter rides him.
However, he doesn’t think the reptiles should be kept as pets, but should be regulated, just like he has to be regulated to use the animals for his shows.
“Every snake and animals you just saw (in his wildlife show) has to be individually looked at,” Hart said.
The United States Department of Agriculture and the Game and Fish people come and check on things, he said.
“ I have to license those animals,” Hart said. “The tigers that Chris (Kilpatrick) has over there, that anaconda could kill those tigers. So if you think about it, that anaconda could kill those tigers and you wouldn’t have a tiger as a pet.”
Having snakes as pets is dangerous. Last month a Burmese python killed a 2-year-old little girl in Oxford, Fla., after the snake escaped from its aquarium.
There are also reports that snake owners are getting tired of having their exotic pet pythons and letting them loose in the Everglades. In response, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla, introduced a bill that would ban all pythons from being imported into the United States in February and a hearing could be held on the matter.
According to Hart, it’s not cheap owning a pet snake. One of his snakes that he uses on stage eats 120 rabbits (that are already deceased) a year.
“Each rabbit is $18, do the math, that’s not cheap,” Hart said. “Now with the economy, I think people are looking at and saying, ‘This thing I got at the pet store that is the length of this room and this big around ...’”
While Hart works with exotic animals on a daily basis and has made working with them a big part of his life, he doesn’t have exotic pets at home. He currently has a dog, an Australia Shepherd.
There was a time when he did have them though.
“I used to, a long time ago I did,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you. It was kind of like the guy at Pizza Hut who just went home after looking at pizza all day.”
