PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Investigating the welfare and conservation implications of alligator wrestling for American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) Casey Riordan, Jennifer Jacquet, Becca FranksID* Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America *
[email protected] a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 Abstract a1111111111 a1111111111 Wildlife tourism attractions (WTA) are popular in the United States, but they may be harmful to the individual animals involved and we question whether they provide benefits to environ- mental conservation. Most research on the welfare and environmental implications of WTAs focuses on charismatic mammals, with few studies investigating these issues for reptiles. OPEN ACCESS Here we examine alligator wrestling, including its impact on animal welfare and environmen- Citation: Riordan C, Jacquet J, Franks B (2020) tal conservation. Using a sample of 94 relevant YouTube videos of alligator wrestling in Flor- Investigating the welfare and conservation ida representing 16 different venues, we coded the environmental and behavioral implications of alligator wrestling for American characteristics evident in each video. We then performed a content analysis of wrestlers' Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis). PLoS ONE 15(11): e0242106. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. narration in a subset of 51 videos to analyze the environmental awareness and educational pone.0242106 components of alligator wrestling. Our results show systemic welfare harm: 11 venues Editor: Bi-Song Yue, Sichuan University, CHINA housed adult alligators together with conspecifics, 96% of alligator wrestling performances facilitated direct contact in the form of physical restraint by one or more human wrestlers, Received: June 7, 2020 and as many as 96% of the videos did not show a suitable water or waterside features for Accepted: October 26, 2020 captive alligators.