'OFTEN COMPARED TO THE LATE STEVE IRWIN'
'Swampmaster' to take on gators at boat show

GRAND RAPIDS -- Nine days into his job as an alligator handler, Jeff Quattrocchi literally had his hands full ... of alligator.

A gator had clamped down on his inner thigh, forcing the Iowa-born farmboy to jam his hands into the powerful reptile's jaws in a desperate attempt to free himself. He was trapped for two horrifying minutes.

"He crushed my thumb. He wouldn't let go of me," Quattrocchi recalled of that incident at a Florida theme park about 14 years ago. "I made a rookie mistake. It was a terrifying bite."
Did this signal a change in career paths? Not hardly.

Instead, Quattrocchi, now 42, plunged further into life as a "swampboy," working closely with dangerous gators, eventually developing an alligator road show.

Now, he performs 300 alligator shows a year, commandeering the eight-foot-long reptiles with enormous snapping jaws while educating crowds about the creatures.

The "Swampmaster" -- often compared to the late Steve Irwin, the Australian "Crocodile Hunter" -- is in Grand Rapids this week, performing at the Grand Rapids Boat Show in DeVos Place.

Quattrocchi made it clear it's not alligator wrestling.

"I do an educational public awareness program about the American alligator," he said. "I can assure you that alligators know nothing about wrestling. I do use a really aggressive alligator, but it's not a competitive match. It's not a man-against-beast thing, but it is an exciting show."

Exciting because Quattrocchi purchases new, lively gators "every couple of weeks" from an alligator farm to ensure they're not accustomed to his handling techniques. "I like them jumping, snapping, mean and aggressive," he insisted. "I'll get into the water with the animal, and it will strike at me. I'll show how its tail whips around to its mouth and how it moves."

(After he's done with a particular 'gator, he "retires" it to a Florida pond he owns. "It's an absolute paradise, if you're an alligator," he quipped, insisting he treats the animals humanely in his "family-oriented" shows.)

The 30- to 45-minute Swampmaster demonstrations -- performed twice at the boat show today, Friday and Sunday, and four times on Saturday -- feature a 200-pound, eight-foot-long alligator in a pool. Quattrocchi lectures in a humorous way about gators' habits and features before getting into the pool to "handle" the reptile.

After each show, he hosts a "meet-and-greet" for audience members, letting them touch and take photos with two younger, 3-foot-long gators named Willy and Wally. "You'll be amazed what that Polaroid picture (with a gator) means to a kid," he said.

Quattrocchi, of Atlanta, conceded the unexpected can occur.

"I've been bitten 12 times in 14 years, all during shows," he said. "You never know with my show. (But) I've gotten better over the years. You just don't want to go out there lackadaisical or make a rookie mistake."

There's good reason for that: Alligators boast 80 razor-sharp teeth and up to 2,000 pounds per square inch in jaw strength, more than six times that of a large dog. Consequently, "you want to keep everything out of the gator's mouth," Quattrocchi quipped.

Interest in alligators has risen due to the popularity of "The Crocodile Hunter" TV program, and Quattrocchi acknowledges the late Irwin, who was killed by a stingray last fall, at every show.

"He was an icon. He was nothing but great for my show," Quattrocchi said. "He's about conservation and saving animals, and that's the way I am, too."