NARRATOR: From the mainland of North America,
the Florida Peninsula stretches 400 miles southward,
reaching almost to the tropics.
At its farthest tip lie the Everglades,
3,000 square miles of primitive swampland.
Deep in this water wilderness lives a primeval reptile the Spaniards called
el lagarto, the lizard.
We know him as the alligator.
He's a creature whose way of life has continued unchanged
for thousands of centuries.
This is the swamp that time forgot,
and our True-Life Adventure is a chapter out of the prehistoric past.
(BIRD HOOTING)
(BIRD TRILLING)
In this strange setting,
primitive creatures feed and breed and stalk their prey
just as they did millions of years ago.
And always, somewhere behind the curtain of mist,
the alligator lies in wait.
With each new day, the hunters and the hunted
renew the ancient pattern of existence.
Even the innocent-looking spiderwebs are more than mere decoration.
Wherever the eye focuses, these subtle snares invite the unwary.
(CAWING)
With the coming of dawn, the birds descend on these ponds,
drawn by the abundance of fish.
For the hungry birds, good living is good fishing,
and no fish is too tiny to be included in somebody's breakfast.
Few are overlooked by these feathered fishermen
so sharp of eye and bill.
Spear fishing is a fine art.
But here's a bird who couldn't spear a fish if he tried.
Still, everyone to his own technique,
and the spoonbill has his own methods of getting food,
all the while keeping an eye out for the unpredictable alligator.
The wood ibis seems to shade the water with his wings
so he can see the bottom, then stirs up minnows with his feet.
To satisfy larger appetites, these pools teem with garfish,
a species surviving from prehistoric times.
Mostly bones and scales, they grow to considerable size.
The cormorant is another expert
who never seems to get his fill.
Sometimes he swallows so many fish
the extra ballast spoils his take off.
A cooling bath is more than welcome,
and the little grebe enjoys her morning dip thoroughly.
The swallows take their plunge on the wing,
satisfied with a splash and a sprinkle,
while the snakebird dives right in.
He's named for his habit of swimming
with only his serpent-like neck out of the water.
Oddly enough, his wings become so saturated
that he literally hangs them out to dry.
The snakebird is sometimes called the water turkey
because of his barred tail.
He's one of the swamp's strangest inhabitants.
Of all the birds, he bears the closest resemblance
to those prehistoric reptiles who were the first creatures to fly.
And in babyhood, this similarity is even more pronounced.
(CAWING)
By the time appetites are satisfied, the morning mist has vanished.
The birds know better than to relax their vigilance, however.
They stay on the alert, even while they preen their fine feathers.
Experience has taught them to pay special attention
to the thick beds of water lilies,
and for good reason.
The silent prowler of the Everglades.
He's a stealthy hunter,
and leaves neither wake nor trail of bubbles.
The moment he appears, the prehistoric past enters the present.
The garfish leap for their lives,
but an alligator in their midst is like a wolf in a sheepfold.
Others join the feast. Gators of all sizes.
Some grow to be over 20 feet in length.
But in this hectic competition for food,
the smaller alligators are often more vicious than the larger ones.
(CAWING)
These insatiable creatures eat anything they can capture.
They have an amazing digestive system.
Their stomach acids dissolve everything.
Fish bones, fur, feathers, even a turtle shell.
Small wonder they're the scourge of the swamp.
The other creatures of the Everglades
have lived with this monster so long
they've become accustomed to his presence.
And they sometimes seem to tease him
by perching mere inches from his nose.
The tiny grebe can even be so nonchalant
as to paddle with one foot as she looks death in the face.
Quite casually, the wading birds fish in the danger zone,
in spite of the fact that the threatening alligator
constantly cruises just off shore.
While the egret hunts for fish,
the alligator stalks the egret.
The eternal chain of menace in the Everglades.
The treacherous gator uses every possible concealment
to bring himself within striking distance.
So near and yet so far.
For when the birds take wing,
the alligator must remain the earthbound reptile that he is.
Still he's a persistent hunter.
And now the gaudy colors of the purple gallinule catch his eye.
At last he's found a bird preoccupied
with its own problems of food gathering.
This is his chance.
Like the other birds,
the gallinule must also risk his life to get food.
He feeds on snails, which he finds beneath the lily pads.
Sometimes, to his surprise, he also finds alligators.
(GALLINULE SQUAWKING)
The gallinule's angry scolding gives warning
that the prowler of the Everglades is still on the loose.
This war of nerves is a strangely unhurried affair,
and the birds learn to estimate
the margin of safety with calm exactness.
A wrong guess of mere inches, however, can mean disaster.
(CAWING)
When the alligator has eaten his fill, he often lies in the sun.
However, a spot of dry land is at such a premium
he must sometimes share it with others.
And the problems of space make for strange bedfellows.
But once the alligator settles down to relax,
he's completely oblivious to his surroundings.
In this lazy state, he hardly cares who comes or goes.
He undertakes nothing more strenuous than a good yawn.
(ALLIGATOR CALLING)
Suddenly a strange sound alerts the swamp.
The mating call of the bull alligator.
(CALLING)
At first the female pretends disinterest,
accepted feminine behavior in any courtship.
Yet all the while, she leads the rival suitors on,
maneuvering them into a battle for her favor.
(GROWLING)
To the conqueror, the fair damsel.
Before long, the female gathers a pile of wet leaves and mud
for a natural incubator.
Inside this mound, she lays from two dozen to 100 eggs.
The heat generated by the decaying material
will incubate the eggs in about two months' time.
If all of them hatched, the swamp would be overrun with alligators,
but not all will survive. Far from it.
In fact, out of every 100 eggs,
only a small percentage will reach adulthood.
During the incubation period,
the female must constantly guard the eggs against numerous enemies,
beginning with other alligators.
Sometimes these intruders devour the entire 100 eggs.
(HISSING) This one, however,
has come upon a mother who is devoted to duty,
and her wrath is more than a match for it.
One hundred alligator eggs still have a chance,
especially while Mother stands guard.
Yet, at intervals, she must leave her post to find food.
And now, in her absence, a new menace appears.
These inquisitive visitors are spotted skunks.
Like all their tribe, they have a great liking for eggs of any kind.
Now he's found one, the next problem is how to break it.
Too big to crack with his teeth, he tries to smash it
by passing it between his legs like a football center.
And this creates still another problem.
For the skunk is so nearsighted
he has trouble finding it again.
Oddly enough, an alligator egg is not as fragile as it appears.
In fact, its durability and the skunk's poor eyesight finally save it.
But only temporarily.
When the raccoon comes along, it's a different story.
Quite by chance, Mrs. Gator discovers that her brood is dwindling.
From now on, she'll keep an almost continual watch over her eggs.
Time passes, and toward the end of the ninth week,
she listens for a faint call from inside the nest.
(YELPING)
This is her signal to scrape away the top layer of leaves.
Her brood, at last, is ready to come into the world.
(YELPING)
A baby alligator's life is a struggle from the beginning.
A struggle to escape his eggshell cradle,
and later a constant fight to survive.
However, he's born with the equipment to meet his problems.
A complete set of sharp teeth and a chip on his shoulder.
(YELPING)
At times like this, instinct guides all water creatures
to their proper element.
And almost immediately, the babies line up
for their exodus to the nearest pond.
It won't be an easy journey,
for a great many hazards lie between the nest and the shore.
One of the worst is the renegade bull,
who lies in wait along the path to the water.
Still, instinct keeps the others moving forward,
with the exception of a few
whose energies get channeled in other directions.
Baby alligators practically come out of the egg fighting.
These youngsters have yet to learn
that when young things don't tend to business,
they're almost certain to get into trouble.
And sure enough, here it comes.
It looks like the end of the trail for a few more of the brood.
Still, baby alligators don't give up easily,
and the raccoon's advantage in size is offset by their sharp teeth.
(YELPING)
Sometimes the young gators use teamwork against the common enemy.
But then again, they're just as apt to return to fighting each other.
This is more like it. Alligators with a handle.
But when the raccoon nearly loses a finger,
(RACCOON SQUEALS)
he suddenly calls it quits.
So after a running battle, the babies reach the shore.
Troubles are not over, however,
for now the problem of food faces them.
An alligator's growth is determined largely by the amount he eats.
From the very beginning,
these youngsters must compete among themselves for their sustenance.
At first, they stay close to their own pond.
Yet even then, they're not entirely safe,
especially when the raccoon returns with reinforcements.
While Father deals with one,
the family searches the shallows for others.
This decimation goes on constantly.
The pattern of survival is one that baby alligators learn quickly.
Always be on guard, try to eat but don't be eaten,
and, most important, be very leery of all strangers.
This young midshipman proudly surveying the quarterdeck
has finally figured out that his best chance for survival
lies in sticking close to Mother.
And so, of the original brood, if Mother manages to save
one or two of her babies,
she's done reasonably well in the face of staggering odds.
Now some newcomers appear on the scene,
a rollicking family of otters.
These are the carefree vagabonds of the swampland,
who travel from pond to pond.
No animals get more fun out of pure play.
The discovery that the alligators hold a prior claim to this pond
doesn't faze them for an instant.
Indeed, that lethal tail seems to fascinate them.
They can swim rings around the gator,
and they go out of their way to prove it.
The alligators don't quite know how to take these impudent visitors.
And finally, fed up with the horseplay, they go below,
where they're less apt to be disturbed.
In this submerged realm of fluid shapes and shadows,
the prowler of the Everglades is king,
his right to rule undisputed.
He presides over a deceptive setting,
one with a mirror in the ceiling.
Nothing is quite what it seems here.
The real and the unreal are interchangeable.
An alligator may seem a shadow,
a shadow may be an alligator.
Vigilance is still the watchword.
And even the turtle, with his protective armor, prefers not to tempt fate.
Before the cormorant invades this weird domain,
he's careful first to make sure which phantom is really the alligator.
This underwater peekaboo goes on constantly.
If the gator changes his tactics and goes off to hide,
the cormorant is more worried than ever.
It'd much rather know where the gator is than where he isn't.
Ah, there he is,
looking like a harmless log with a smile.
Up above, meanwhile, traffic becomes quite congested.
And sometimes these paddlers are so busy watching the alligator,
they forget to watch where they're going.
Except for the fish, most of these creatures are out of their element,
and must constantly replenish exhausted supplies of oxygen.
The snakebird solves the problem in a way all his own.
He simply thrusts his extra-long neck above the surface
while his body remains completely submerged.
Every bird adapts itself to this water world in its own way.
The energetic coot swims with his wings.
His feet are not the webbed paddles of the true swimmer.
They're merely fringed with delicate membranes.
But this makes little difference to the alligator.
Dangling feet of any sort are an invitation to tiptoe upstairs.
The coot's running take off leaves him with nothing
but footprints on the ceiling.
Uh-oh.
Enter the uninvited.
Delighted to meet an old friend again,
the otters take up the game where they left it.
It's against the gator's nature, however, to make himself conspicuous.
The only life he knows is one of stealth and deception.
And he soon goes into hiding again to practice the art he knows best.
Meanwhile, the otters take possession of his underwater domain.
To these merry madcaps, life is a continuous, carefree water ballet.
In the swampland, all of life follows a pattern of endless cycles,
for these things are timeless and will never change.
The life-giving rains that follow the draught,
the quiet watchfulness of the hunted,
the silent menace of the hunter,
the calm that comes after the storm.
And so this True-Life Adventure is a story
that has neither beginning nor end.
For as long as nature preserves this water wilderness
for her own,
the prowler of the Everglades will survive
in the swamp that time forgot.