Why It’s Hard to Find Good Gator Wrestling Help These Days?
In 2000, members of the Seminole tribe near Hollywood, Florida put an ad in the local paper. They were looking for a new alligator wrestler. Mano-y-gator conflict is nothing new to the Seminole. Hand-caught gators were a traditional food source. But it was only in the 21st century that the tribe had hard luck finding people willing to jump in there (i.e., the swamp) and go for it (i.e., pin several-hundred-pound, sharp-toothed creatures to the ground with only their soft and presumably tasty bodies). This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Wrestling alligators for the benefit of white tourists used to be one of the few Seminole-friendly job markets in Florida. Improved access to higher education–and the fact that, today, Seminole are more likely to actually own the tourist trap, rather than just work there–meant fewer tribe members willing to risk life and limb for a poorly paying job. And thus, the newspaper ad.

*Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental floss magazine.