You may be cool, but you're probably not taking your graduation photos with a 14-foot alligator cool.
But that's exactly what one McNeese State University student did. 22-year-old Kat Daley took a senior photoshoot with a 14-foot alligator named Big Al. But it wasn't her first time face-to-face with the alligator. Daley actually runs Gator County with her partner, Eddie.
So it was a bit like another day at the office for her.
"I really wanted to highlight what I do with these animals every day and what they mean to me," she told The Post. "I feel like reptiles are demonized in the media a lot more than they need to be, alligators specifically. They're not as aggressive as people like to think. When people don't interfere with those wild animals, they aren't gonna interfere with us."
14-Foot Alligator
Daley started working with animals when she was just 7 years old. It's a love that has continued all the way up to now. Daley had the great idea of doing graduation photos with the alligator. She wasn't scare of Big Al at all because she knows the animal
"The alligators are trained, they only do it with Big Al and Big Tex, who have been trained for a long time. It's not just some random alligator," she said.
Meanwhile, photographer Laura Oglesbee said that she had no issues with getting close to the alligator. But she had to keep her distance when Daley took a photo with a rattlesnake.
"I had to use my wide lens for that," Oglesbee said. "They wouldn't let me get too close for that one, but [Daley] just held that snake like it was nothing."
Gator Country has 450 alligators.
"We bring them here, take care of them, feed them, pretty much let them live out their best lives they can in captivity because they don't have a chance in the wild," she said. "I love the conservation aspect of it, where we get to save these animals that would otherwise be destroyed. But I also love the education aspect, getting people to see and interact with these animals and see they're not so scary. Honestly, I kind of already have my dream job, so I think I'm just gonna stay right here and see where it takes me."
