Alligator and reptile sanctuary is as out of place in small town as palm trees
By Chuck Carlson
Battle Creek Enquirer
ATHENS, Mich. (AP) Godzilla is grumpy.
It has been a long, cold, snowy winter, especially for a 9-foot alligator, and one of the senior residents of the Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary & Zoological Gardens is ready for a little warmth and sunshine.
He’s also more than a little annoyed at having been cooped up for months in the same enclosure with his younger, friskier gator friends that include Chuckles, Murphy, Tom and Spot, according to the Battle Creek Enquirer.
So when Dave Critchlow enters and begins prodding the big guy with a metal probe, Godzilla has had enough.
He swishes his tail, glares at Critchlow and lets go with a long, low, menacing hiss that is not alligator-speak for “Have a nice day.”
But Critchlow takes it all in stride. He talks to Godzilla in soothing tones as though he’s just one of the guys, which in most ways, he is. Before long, Godzilla has settled back in the water, calmer but still grumpy, and Critchlow smiles.
He’s seen all this a thousand times and he never gets tired of it.
“I’ve had him for 15 years,” Critchlow said. “He’s one of the originals. He’s one of my mainstays.”
Critchlow’s alligator and reptile sanctuary, sitting on M-66 at the outskirts of town, is about as out of place in this small Midwestern town as palm trees would be.
But for six years, he has run the sanctuary as a way to inspire and educate people about reptiles, which have fascinated him since he was kid.
“What little kids don’t like alligators?” he said of his love of the beasts, which probably stemmed from his dad, Jack, who was a biology teacher in Battle Creek.
Today, his 4 -acre park hosts alligators from 15 states. All have been rescued from difficult situations, often from families who decided an alligator did not make a great pet after all.
The animals find their way to Athens where Critchlow and his daughter, Lina Kelly, and son, Peter, nurse them, feed them and, in many cases, train them to use in his educational program.
His sanctuary also includes caymans, pythons, lizards and other assorted reptiles and Critchlow is something of a roaming ambassador, traveling the state to bring his message about reptiles to everyone from skittery kindergartners to less-skittery college students.
He recently was at the Marshall Middle School science fair, showing off his favorite display piece, a two-foot long alligator named “Alphabet Soup” because his markings display not only letters but numbers.
Critchlow brings a couple of small alligators (with rubber bands around their mouths), a snake or two, maybe a bearded dragon lizard and a giant tortoise. The kids either squeal with delight or back away in uncertainty but, usually, they all look and they all touch and, most important, they ask questions.
“It’s about breaking down the walls of ignorance,” Critchlow said, who is constantly trying to dispel myths about alligators, docile creatures he calls “frogs with teeth.”
Over the next few months he’ll make trips around the state to schools and libraries and the message is always the same.
“Alligators eat and kill and destroy everything,” Critchlow said of the stereotype. “And that’s just not true.”
He also welcomes students from nearby veterinary colleges and zoos who want to see the work he’s doing.
Critchlow now believes his park is established enough that, for the first time since it opened, he’s growing.
“The first few years, it was about keeping your head above water,” he said. “Now we want to expand.”
He is hoping to purchase another acre of land and move his park south to include what he calls a “campus” for his alligators an “elementary” for his smallest gators (less than 2 feet), a “middle school” for the mid-sized alligators (three to six feet) and a “high school” for the big boys, including a new 10-footer Critchlow is expecting sometime in the next few weeks.
He’s also hoping to build a new observation deck and nature walk and, eventually, a tropical garden that includes other reptiles and birds.
The initial phase of the work is expected to be completed by June and Critchlow said he has a local company building it with funds collected from ticket sales and fees from alligator recovery.
At the moment, much of his park is still deep in winter and he’s been unable to clean the outdoor ponds because they’re still ice-covered.
The weather has also impacted one of the highlights of the season for customers the moving of the alligators from their heated indoor facility to their outdoor homes for the summer.
For the big gators, it requires several people to lift and carry the animal to their pens where they will spend the next few months. Godzilla, at 350 pounds, requires six people to carry him.
That event was scheduled for April 5-6 and April 12-13, but Critchlow is all but convinced the weather won’t cooperate so he’s planning to push it back a week, starting April 12-13 and continuing April 19-20.
For Critchlow, this is the culmination of a dream he’s had for 30 years, when he envisioned his own reptile park.
He actually kept alligators in Battle Creek for years and when he received an early retirement offer from his long-time employer, Federal Express, in 2004, he grabbed it and moved ahead with his plans to open his own park.
That’s when it got interesting.
He originally hoped to open his sanctuary in Convis Township near Cornwell’s Turkeyville. But a furious public backlash forced him to back off.
“I was overwhelmed by the aggressiveness,” he said. “People thought children were going to die; they thought cattle would disappear. I didn’t expect that reaction.”
Frustrated by that response, he planned to look elsewhere in the state when Athens came to him with a proposal to build his park there.
“It’s been night and day difference,” he said. “It’s been a real good fit.”
Critchlow has established a communication with his alligators, most of whom now answer to their names and to commands. Godzilla, he said, can understand 16 words and certain phrase such as “good boy.”
Grace, a newer addition who lost her left foot in a fight years ago with another gator, answers to a command to lift her foot so it can be examined.
During shows every summer, Critchlow demonstrates how smart his alligators are, always with an eye toward educating the public.
“We don’t wrestle alligators here and we don’t teach them to ride bikes,” he said. “It’s amazing how these animals can be trained. They’re remarkable.”
