♪♪ -[ Laughs ] You can see -- So, this is a little American alligator.

It's not a crocodile.

Okay, here we go.

Here's a couple more.

In fact, one of them just flew.

♪♪ -Ooh.

-Diamondback turtle.

♪♪ -What's this?

-Yeah, what is it?

-Educating the public about the waters and lands of the Lowcountry is essential.

Quality environmental education is the key to teaching people about the animals and plants that live in local habitats.

In fact, if people know what they have, then they're gonna do a lot better job taking care of it.

Let's spend some time with some environmental educators and students of the Lowcountry.

♪♪ Man, this is one pretty spot.

It's hard to believe that there's an elementary school and a middle school just right over here.

So, this is CaTia Gilbert, and CaTia teaches Whale Branch Middle School.

-Yep.

I've been teaching for 10 years.

-And so, tell us about this spot.

-So, what we have here is an outdoor classroom.

What we've done is we've built a nature trail that the kids can come out, look at the native plants.

We've added bird boxes.

We have a beautiful outdoor classroom that kids can come out and examine.

And then lastly, we have our oyster reef, that -- -And I remember being involved in this one.

I remember working with the kids from Whale Branch Middle and helping build this thing with the DNR SCORE Program, right?

-And they had a wonderful time.

And again, those are kids that helped the original, and they've come back out.

And we just want to make sure that they understand that this is their environment.

Everything that's around them is in their own backyard, and all they have to do is take that advantage go outside and look at it.

-I think it's the best thing in the world to get these kids out experiencing their own habitats.

-It feels like -- -It feels weird.

-Don't reach over the head, though, okay?

-That thing feels like skin.

-Whoa!

I can touch an egg?

-This is Erica Stevenson.

And, Erica, you teach at the elementary school right over here, right?

-Yeah, not too far away.

-So, tell me what you like about this outdoor classroom.

-Well, the kids love getting outside.

Any time we can go outside, the more excited they are.

The more that we can interact with nature and the animals around us, the more they learn, and the more they retain that information, and the better that they'll feel that they're gonna take care of the salt marsh in the future, too.

-You guys have a bridge here.

You have a trail here.

Tell me a little bit about some of that.

-Oh, yeah.

It's been a lot easier to take them out to the salt marsh.

It's right in our backyard, and with the expansion of the trail and the bridge that they added, it makes it a lot easier and a lot safer to take the kids out.

-And you've had a lot of community involvement.

You had Keep Beaufort County Beautiful and Public Works, and all those organizations have kind of worked with you here.

-Oh, yeah.

We have a lot of support in our communities, in our school, and it's very much appreciated by us and all the kids.

-Oh, absolutely.

-Right now, we have a lot of the older students from the middle school, and right now they're interacting with some of the students from our elementary school and just teaching them stuff that they've learned.

And it's kind of bridging them.

And as the older kids teach, they're actually learning a lot more, as well, and the younger kids like to listen to them more than the teachers, anyway.

-Yeah, kids love to learn from other kids.

There's no doubt about that.

-Mm-hmm.

-Sounds like you guys are doing some really neat stuff.

-Oh, yeah.

There's a lot of neat things going on here.

♪♪ -Julie Binz is the education coordinator for the South Carolina Marine Resources Division, and she's gonna take us on an adventure into the ACE Basin with a group of fifth-graders.

So, Julie, how's all this gonna work today?

-Well, we have a group of fifth-graders from Jane Edwards Elementary School, and they live right down the road.

We're aboard the E/V Discovery.

We're gonna cruise through the salt marsh, put our trawl net out in the Edisto River, and catch I don't know what.

Anything from shrimp to stingrays.

-Well, I've always thought this is one of the best environmental-education tools anywhere.

I mean, it's a great tool for seeing things.

-Great.

Thanks.

It's a lot of fun.

-All right.

Good morning, guys.

So, my name is Jessica, and this is Julie.

We're gonna be working with you guys.

Welcome to the Discovery.

So, we are gonna learn about estuaries.

But before we get to that, we work for the Department of Natural Resources.

So, what's a natural resource?

♪♪ So, what is an estuary?

Any guesses?

-Where animals live?

-It's definitely where animals live.

What do you call that, a place where an animal lives?

-A habitat.

-A habitat.

Very good.

-You can feel the boat shaking.

And we're gonna go like this, or we're gonna go like that.

-I wanted to jump off.

-There you go.

-Oh!

-So, what do you guys think we're gonna see?

What are you expecting to see when we drag the net?

-I think fish.

I think fish, crabs, a horseshoe crab.

And I think we might get a shark.

-As Jessica's putting our big reel net out, I'm gonna talk with our little example of how it's working while it's under the water.

♪♪ -Give us one second.

Tony's gonna help me pull the net in, and then we're gonna have to sort through it.

So just be patient, and then I promise we'll pass around everything.

You'll get to see it up close.

-All right.

Let's go.

Oh, wow.

Look at this, guys.

[ Cheering ] Got all kinds of cool stuff.

-Horseshoe crabs!

-Ooh, that would hurt.

-Oh, wow.

-So, he's got these little hooks on his front, right?

The front set of pincers... are like boxing gloves.

They're like these little hooks.

And you'll see when I bring him around to you.

Want me to put him on you the right way?

-If I had a dead one.

-Oh, my.

[ Laughter ] [ Indistinct conversations ] -There we go.

There we go.

So, he also has two longer tentacles, right?

So, he's gonna stick those tentacles out in the water and grab some poor little tiny fish, and then pull it close to him.

He's got ink in there, right?

He's making some ink.

What is that for?

-Oh!

-He's pretty flat, right?

Where does he live?

-On the ocean floor.

-On the bottom.

Very good.

So, you can see he's kind of bony.

You can touch him, yeah.

-Slimy.

-He's got a very muscular foot he's gonna use to crawl along the bottom.

-Ew.

Look at that.

-Yeah, almost like sandpaper, 'cause all those scales are facing one direction.

♪♪ -Julie, that was awesome.

Man, I love seeing kids get really excited about things in nature.

-I know.

It's a lot of fun.

It's great being able to take kids out here in the ACE Basin, beautiful undeveloped estuary.

And hopefully inspiring the next generation of coastal stewards.

-Yeah, and probably the best way to protect the ACE Basin is to educate as many people as we possibly can about it.

-Yes.

-Well, thank you so much for joining us today.

♪♪ Today, I get to introduce my favorite guest that we've ever had on this show.

It's Kathryn Madden.

She's an adjunct professor at USCB -- University of South Carolina at Beaufort -- and she also is my wife, so I know a lot about what she does.

So, tell me, what are we gonna do today?

-Well, today I brought with me my environmental biology class to do a field trip through the salt marsh with you.

-So, these guys are not necessarily biology majors, right?

-No.

A lot of these students are tourism majors, they're business majors.

So, other fields.

-So, what do you want to show these students?

-I'd like -- We've been studying aquatic biodiversity, so I'd like for them to have the opportunity to go around this island and be able to see some freshwater habitat, and also salt-marsh habitat.

-Yeah, so we can show them the salt marsh, and we can show them some great ephemeral wetlands.

So, this will be good.

-Excellent.

-You guys understand the whole idea of a cast net is to throw it so these heavy leads sort of spread out into a circle.

And it opens up and hits the water, sinks to the bottom, and then what you do is pull on this rope.

and it scoops the net underneath and catches fish or shrimp or whatever else.

Are you right-handed or left-handed?

-Right-handed.

-Put it out.

Almost!

That was a really good try.

-Put it in your mouth.

-I'm not putting that in my mouth.

-There's nothing wrong with it.

-We were talking about the alligator.

So, I just want you to be thinking about that.

So, remember niches?

We talked about a niche?

It's their role that they play.

So, this is its habitat, its home.

So they build these big mounds, these nests, and they lay their eggs inside there, and she protects it.

♪♪ -Oh, there we go.

-Ooh, a big one, too.

-Now, somebody's got to hold this one.

-He's slimy.

-He's slimy?

That's actually a good thing.

Amphibians have that, like, kind of slimy coating on them, and that helps protect them from things in the environment.

Does anybody want to guess what kind of frog this is?

-An ugly one.

-Oh, now, they're not ugly.

-Ugly?

So, frogs, this particular type of frog -- This is a bullfrog, and bullfrogs are tremendous jumpers.

And if you look at it, I mean, huge thighs and calves, and they can jump long distances.

They tire out fairly quickly, but those first couple jumps are really, really powerful.

And that's how they escape snakes, birds, and all sorts of things like that.

Oh, good catch!

-Good catch.

All right.

She's a pro.

-Sign her up.

Amphibians in general, they really have problems if there's any kind of environmental contaminants.

Chemicals, things like that really affect amphibians, not only both their aquatic and terrestrial habitats, but also their skins are permeable, so contaminants readily get through the skin.

Let him go.

Let's just let him go right over here.

-Whoa.

Oh, my gosh.

That thing was a huge leap.

-Look at that.

What about frogs?

So, when they metamorph, they metamorph, how do they breathe?

How do they respirate when they are tadpoles?

-Gills.

-Gills.

-They have gills.

And so, then they metamorph into an adult, and then they have...?

-Lungs.

-Lungs.

So, if you look at these traps, what do you guys think?

Same thing with turtles.

They have lungs, as well.

If we want to see what's in here, and we want to trap for them, we want to mark them, count them, whatever, give you a chance and opportunity to see them.

But we want them to be safe while they're in the trap, so those traps are only halfway submerged so those animals have a chance to breathe.

Yeah.

So, these are gonna be our bullfrogs.

Let me put him in the water real quick so you can see him.

And then if you hold up and take a look at him.

So, you can see their legs are starting to emerge.

So, their tail is gonna be reabsorbed into the body for food while their legs come out.

Isn't it amazing, though?

They start off a completely different body form.

And then -- ooh!

-- when conditions are just right, they metamorph.

♪♪ -So, we flipped one thing...

There he is.

So, it is a black racer.

Good call, whoever said that.

So, snakes like to hide.

And so here's a black racer that was probably gonna spend the night under that piece of metal.

And this is one that will bite, but you can hold it safely if you want to.

And what you've got to do is just kind of hold it behind the head.

Yeah, just hold him real carefully behind the head, and then hold the body, too.

So, obviously a non-venomous snake.

It's interesting, because people have a tendency to worry about amphibian decline, but it could be reptiles are just as important as indicators.

So, if reptiles are disappearing, you got to figure what else is going on.

So, I'm gonna put him back down.

And watch this thing skate off.

They are very, very fast.

-He's lively, too.

-What's that?

-That is a copperhead.

-Okay, so, this is a venomous snake.

And if you look at copperheads... Yeah, be careful.

So, this is obviously a pit viper.

It has a triangular head and a very thick -- sort of thick body like a lot of pit vipers do.

And, obviously, if this bit you, it'd be really, really serious.

It's a pit viper that has hemotoxic venom that does damage to, you know, blood and muscle tissue.

And so, it could hurt you really, really badly.

Now, the good news about snakes like this is they really don't want to bite anybody.

But you notice -- You know, I pulled him out of where he was hiding, and, you know, I'm just trying to get a better look at him.

But if I leave this snake alone, it's gonna leave me alone.

And notice it's not even trying to bite now, and I'm standing right next to it.

So, really common snake in the Lowcountry.

This is one that, if you spend any time outdoors, there's a good chance you're gonna see one of these.

Notice how -- This animal looks pretty bold here, but if you put it in a pile of leaves, I mean, it would disappear.

It is perfect camouflage.

Okay, I'm gonna take him right back over where he came from.

That was kind of fun.

♪♪ -Everybody always thinks, like, "Well, it won't matter if I just toss this out," you know.

But you got to to think that there's probably a million people thinking the same thing, and that accumulative effect is gonna obviously build up.

You have choices, too, when you go to the grocery store, places, like, you want to live.

You know, so just make sure you're always thinking about that.

-I'll tell you one of the most important things you guys can do, regardless of what field you want to go into, is you can learn as much as you can about your local habitats.

I mean, because you're gonna be making decisions.

Again, just because you're not a biologist doesn't mean you're not gonna be making decisions that affect local habitats and the natural areas around you.

Learn all you can, and then you can make the best possible decisions.

♪♪ Zoos are one of the best environmental-education tools that we have in this country.

And sure, Riverbanks Zoo has lions and elephants and other exotic species, but they also do a lot of work with native -- species that are native to South Carolina, as well.

So, I'd like to introduce Scott Pfaff.

Scott is the curator of herpetology for Riverbanks Zoo.

-Right.

-Scott, welcome.

-Well, thanks for being here, Tony.

We're excited.

-So, tell me a little bit about some of the projects that you're working on, the education that you do here at Riverbanks.

-Well, you know, education is one of the most important things that zoos do.

We try to connect people, our visitors, with animals.

And so many of them don't get a chance to get out in the woods and see wild animals.

We give them that opportunity here.

And let me just quickly say that reptiles and amphibians are really popular in zoos.

When we opened this building in 1989, it doubled our attendance.

Our attendance went from 500,000 to 1 million in a year.

That's how popular reptiles and amphibians are.

-And you do a lot of education with school kids, too, right?

-We do.

We do a lot of education.

I think we do more than 100,000 school kids in a year, come to Riverbanks Zoo for formal presentations and informal presentations.

So, bringing those kids in here, one of the most important things we do, as well as our conservation projects.

-Right.

And so, you've agreed to show us around the Aquarium Reptile Complex.

-Yep, sure have.

-Well, let's go on in and take a look.

-All right.

Come on.

Tony, this is the South Carolina gallery of the ARC, and it's devoted just to reptiles and amphibians that you can see in this state.

-Yeah, I see a lot of the usual suspects in here.

Pine snakes and... -Diamondback rattlesnakes.

I know you showed those on one of your previous episodes.

And the good thing about these exhibits is you can get literally inches away from a dangerous snake, but, of course, it's perfectly safe.

-Yeah, it's a way to get a good close look at one.

-Right.

-This is a nice exhibit.

-Yeah, we go with naturalistic exhibits.

We try to depict the animals in their natural habitats.

You see that canebrake on the move.

We see a lot of natural behaviors, including reproduction.

And, of course, this time of year, this is when our rattlesnakes are breeding, just like in the wild.

Well, Tony, this is another popular exhibit here.

Cottonmouths, and that's an animal that you and I love.

And visitors want to see them.

There's so many misconceptions about cottonmouths.

You know, people think they're found all over the state.

They mistake water snakes for them.

So, we like to show them cottonmouths.

And we have some big ones in here, like that one in the back that you see.

And that's an artifact of being in captivity.

Animals that live at the zoo live longer and get bigger than their wild counterparts.

-And I noticed a big difference between these two, shows the variability in this species.

One of them's very light, and the other one's almost black.

-Right.

And an older an animal gets, with reptiles, sometimes the darker they become.

So, young animals like that cottonmouth that's so active, yeah, he still has his bright pattern.

-And, Scott, one of my favorite species, corn snakes.

-Yeah, I agree.

You know, of all the species of snakes in the world, this is my favorite.

And they're so pretty.

But it's hard for people to see them because, as you know, they live underground.

So, you know, you have to really look for them.

But we have a lot of snakes in here in the corn-crib exhibit.

-Yeah, I love the looks of this.

-Right.

-Well, Scott, it's getting a little busy out here in the exhibits.

Can we go behind the scenes?

-We sure can.

And, actually, a lot of our conservation projects take place not on exhibit but behind the scenes.

So let's go back and take a look.

-All right.

So, Scott, this is the propagation room.

-Right.

We keep a lot of off-display reptiles and amphibians back here.

-And we got a couple buckets here.

-I thought this would be interesting, if we showed the folks a couple of native snakes.

-So, you get to handle the coral snake, I'm gonna handle the scarlet kingsnake.

-Well, I have the special bite-proof glove that allows me to handle this coral snake safely.

And, of course, this is something you should not do if you see a snake in the wild.

-Right.

So, this is the non-venomous, native mimic of the coral snake, right?

-Non-venomous scarlet kingsnake and the venomous coral snake, which is actually a type of cobra.

It's in the Elapid family.

-I don't know what you use.

Do you use the "Red on yellow, kill a fellow, red on black, friend of Jack," or...?

-Right.

But, you know, if they're crawling really fast, you can't see what arrangement the colors are in.

But you can see, the animals actually look quite different.

-Yeah.

They really do when they're side by side.

And this one -- I'm glad this is in fact -- Since I'm getting bit, I'm glad this is in fact the scarlet king and not the coral snake.

-Well, we found out that coral snakes here are actually pretty non-aggressive animals.

But we always take precautions.

We never freehand them, as you call it.

We always have to handle them with special gloves like this or with snake hooks.

-And in certain parts of the Lowcountry, that is a common species.

We have a couple of our Sea Islands and barrier islands where we see a lot of coral snakes.

-Right.

But, you know, I've never found a coral snake in South Carolina.

I find them in Florida, but I have yet to find one of these things in South Carolina, because they spend a lot of time underground, as you know.

Very cryptic.

-Well, Scott, let's put these up and see what you guys have outside.

-Okay, let's go out back.

Tony, this is one our outside amphibian enclosures.

And if I pick this up...

Turn that log over right there.

-Oh, gopher frogs.

Two of them.

Can I grab one of these?

-Yeah, sure.

-Oh, they are cute, aren't they?

-Gopher frogs, as you know, are a very rare species in South Carolina, declining over their range.

And what we did here is we collected gopher frog tadpoles.

We want to establish a self-sustaining captive population, be able to breed them, then take tadpoles produced here at Riverbanks Zoo, release them into gopher frog habitat that's been restored, and hopefully increase the wild population.

-And that's been done, right?

It's been done in the past?

-Yes, it has been done in Georgia, and it's been done with Mississippi gopher frogs, which is a different species but very similar to this.

-Well, so, this is an animal that people don't even know exists, right?

-Right, right.

One because it's so rare, and one because it spends a lot of time underground.

They call them gopher frogs 'cause they live in gopher tortoise burrows.

Or if there are no tortoises around, in old root holes and things like that.

-So how old is this little guy?

-This animal's 2 years old.

And they stay out here year-round, so they're out here during the summer when it's 100 degrees and during the winter when it's single-digit temperatures.

As a matter of fact, last winter, this whole enclosure froze, but these guys were able to survive.

Tony, this is another one of our rare amphibian projects for South Carolina.

What we have in here are dwarf sirens, which of course is a state threatened species.

And we keep it very complex.

You see all this mats of Juncus grass, which they live in, which is great for them, but it makes it hard to find them.

So what I've done is, we went ahead and caught a couple of these dwarf sirens and we have them in this bucket.

And we found out here that they do some very unusual things.

They breed when they're 5 years old.

They never breed again, at least in our experience, and they can live for more than 20 years.

They also have a voice.

If you pick them up, they squeak.

And if you keep handling them, they play dead just like a hognose snake.

-[ Chuckles ] That's pretty neat.

And these are big ones.

The ones I've seen have been much smaller than this in the wild.

-Right.

Yeah.

They're big dwarf sirens.

-Yeah, it's kind of oxymoronic to say big dwarf.

-Oxymoronic and very difficult to hold onto.

They're so slippery.

But if I have a net here... Let's see if I can scoop one up... -There we go.

-There we can take a look at it.

But, yeah, very pretty.

Have little tiny front legs.

-But no back legs.

-No back legs, and one of the only amphibians that actually has toenails.

-Oh, I didn't... Yeah, I didn't realize that.

Yeah, good example of one of those animals that lives here but you never see, and people just don't know it exists.

-Never see it.

And during droughts, when their habitat dries up, they might spend years underground, cocooned, waiting for the next rains.

-All right, well, cool.

Let's go see what else we can find.

-What we have here, Tony, is one of our mole salamander breeding enclosures, another tank that stays outside year-round so the animals experience the natural seasons here in South Carolina.

So, if we uncover this log right here... -Oh, wow.

A marbled salamander and spotted -- even better, a spotted salamander.

-Spotted salamanders together.

-And those are bruisers.

-Yeah, they're big ones.

-I'll never forget, Scott, my two sons and I were walking down a road, we were looking for salamanders one night, and we caught 67 of these crossing the road.

And what had happened is they were falling off one curb and then couldn't get up the other side.

-Getting trapped on the other side.

-So we walked along and picked them up over the curb and let them go to their breeding wetland.

-Wow.

And fascinating animals.

Spotted salamanders, as you know, actually have an alga that lives in their cells, and they can get energy directly from the photosynthesis from that alga.

And the interesting thing about the marbled salamanders like this is their larva actually feeds on the larva of spotted salamanders, because they hatch first and get bigger, and can predate the spotted salamander larva.

-This is a beautiful salamander, and of course the state salamander.

-The state salamander, right.

-State amphibian, right?

-State amphibian.

Right.

[ Clicking ] -So, how big is this alligator?

-This alligator is 11 feet long, and weighs about 600 pounds.

So he's a big one.

He's probably about 50 years old.

-So, this animal's trained, isn't it?

-He is trained.

Believe it or not, crocodilians like this are highly intelligent animals and easily trainable, and that's what we've done here.

We teach these animals simple commands to come out to stations when we feed them.

And the reason we do that is for control, so we can come out here and he doesn't rush at us, trying to get us.

And he also has learned the difference between us maintaining the exhibit -- he's not gonna get fed -- and feeding like this.

So, we can station him and actually examine his feet without having to restrain him or anesthetize him.

-Pardon me for occasionally looking over my shoulder, but... [ Both laugh ] Wow!

As you said earlier, it's kind of like having a dinosaur, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's the last of the dinosaurs.

♪♪ -So, what are we doing here, Scott?

-Actually, this is the safe place to stand when you're working with gators, 'cause it's difficult for them to turn around and get you like he's doing.

But we can actually touch him like this.

We can pull his feet back and look at his feet to see if he has any kind of abrasions going on.

We can draw blood if we want to do a veterinary exam.

So, this is one of the things we do.

We acclimate them in captivity to be able to handle them like this.

And other types of animals, too, we do this with, like, gorillas for instance.

But, of course, you don't want to try this with a wild alligator, 'cause he would react much differently.

-Yeah, this is a captive animal.

-He's a tamed animal.

-And even doing this, you've got to be a professional, and you've got to know what you're doing.

This is not something you'd ever want to try without training.

♪♪ So, Scott, can I feed him?

-Oh, absolutely.

We have some alligator biscuits here.

-I'm just curious.

What are alligator biscuits made of?

-Well, it's actually made for the commercial alligator trade.

Of course, alligators are farmed for their skins and meat, and this is the biscuit they made for that.

-You ever tasted one of these?

-No, and I don't want to.

-They don't smell like they taste real good.

-But you can go ahead and throw some in the water close to his head.

-Well, Scott, it's hard to follow this.

That was absolutely awesome.

-It's been fun.

Thanks for coming up.

-Thanks for sharing some of the education you guys are doing here at Riverbanks Zoo.

-Anytime.

-Oh, no.

-And a -- and a croc and an alligator.

-We all realize that the South Carolina Lowcountry is a very special place, but these habitats won't survive if we don't teach people how to take care of them.

I think the best way to accomplish this is to let the kids do the teaching for us.

Thanks for joining us on "Coastal Kingdom."

♪♪