Man Known for Viral Videos of His Swims with Gators Admits 'Good Reflexes Have Saved My Life' (Exclusive)

Christopher Gillette tells PEOPLE what it's like to work with exotic animals and why he wants people to see them in a new light

• Christopher Gillette is a wildlife biologist and conservationist who runs the Bellowing Acres Sanctuary

• Gillette tells PEOPLE that a lifelong love of animals set him on a path to caring for alligators, crocodiles, snakes and more

• The animal lover opens up about why educating others on animals you don't see every day is so important to him
  

Exotic animals are fascinating to many, but few get to see them up close. Across social media, Christopher Gillette tries to share the sides of animal that many don't see.

"I just always loved animals. I grew up in Florida and grew up catching snakes and lizards and everything I could find. I got bigger, I'd catch bigger stuff," he tells PEOPLE.

Today, Gillette is a wildlife biologist, conservationist and wildlife photographer. He provides underwater gator encounters to brave tourists while working hard to care for animals who have few options. All the while, Gillette is diligently working to educate folks about some of nature's wildest animals and change public perceptions of these creatures.

Working with animals that include alligators, crocodiles, snakes and sharks, Gillette says it takes a balance of knowledge of the animal and instinct.

"It's definitely been exciting. I try to understand everything about each animal the best that I can and be as knowledgeable about any situation as I can," he says. "But at the end of the day, having good reflexes has saved my life a lot of times."

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Gillette's sanctuary work has taken up a big part of his last year. He's worked hard with his team to get Bellowing Acres off the ground.

"We've got a ton of different animals. If you had told me a year ago that I'd have five coatimundis — a cousin of the raccoon — I'd never have believed you. We also have four red foxes that were rescued from a fur farm shutdown. Then there's a fennec fox, a skunk, four prairie dogs, a ton of parrots, hornbills, toucans, cockatoos and a bunch of tortoises."

"We also have three goats that were rescued, one of which has one leg. We've got four pigs right now, one of which we're fostering from another rescue. It's way more than just alligators."

Gillette explains that many of the animals come from difficult backgrounds.

"The four red foxes were rescued from a fur farm shutdown because there are still active fur farms in the U.S. These ones were kept in tiny little 4x4 wired cages. Before they got here, they'd never touched dirt. They have no shelter, just full sun and full snow, in Iowa," he says.

"It's absolutely literal animal abuse, but because it's agricultural, they have no regulation over them. The fennec fox also came from a facility that was trying to use it for interactions, but he's not very nice."

There can be a lot of difficult moments that come with sanctuary care, both logistically and emotionally.

"We just lost an alligator recently. We got a call from a trapper that this gator had been shot in the head twice with crossbows. It literally had an arrow sticking out of his head. We drove over to Pasco County to pick it up at 10:00 p.m. and then two hours back and got home at 2 a.m. Then we're up at 7 a.m., calling every vet that we can get a hold of to try to get something lined up," Gillette says.

"We found this really awesome mobile vet who drove all the way out to see us. We did X-rays and found out it had two arrowheads stuck in it, literally less than an inch from the brain case. Then, the rest of the face was peppered in shotgun pellets that were old and healed over. You didn't even know that from looking at it. You see that the arrow sticking out but the shock impellers were in his head and his toe all throughout ... even in his tongue, like all over the place."

They were able to get the alligator sedated and x-rayed. The arrowhead, as well as "a couple of shotgun pellets," were removed.

"It was okay, but then when we went to check it out in the morning, it had died. So that was really depressing and is definitely one of the hardest parts of it. You're trying to save animals that are already in really bad shape and sometimes they don't make it and just breaks your heart," he says.

The odds sometimes feel stacked against those caring for these exotic animals, with Gillette detailing how difficult it is to secure proper care.

"Finding the right professionals is really hard because most of them are cat and dog vets. So you have to find an exotic vet, and most exotic vets have only ever worked with sugar gliders or ferrets or something like that," he explains. "Finding a vet who knows anything about alligators is really, really difficult. But it's a small world, so I know a few."

"We're also a sanctuary that is in the middle of nowhere, so finding one we can get to come out to us is the hardest part. The gators are sometimes like 11 ft. and over 300 lbs. It's not like I can just load them up in the car and drive over to the vet," he adds.

When it comes to thinking of the most dangerous animal he's encountered — be it in touring, conservation or photography — Gillette explains it's more about situational danger than the danger of any one animal.

"It depends on the situation that you're in. I don't want to say right off the bat like, 'It was a tiger shark,' because it makes people afraid of those animals. Really, it comes down to what kind of a situation you're in," he explains.

"I work with tons of extremely dangerous animals. I've had a lot of really close calls with sharks. I used to run shark diving trips as a business and I've also been behind the camera and on camera for Discovery Channel and Shark Week."

"Snakes are definitely a big one. I caught a black mamba when I was in Botswana in Africa and it's the most dangerous snake in the world. We're out in the middle of the bush, and that's an extremely dangerous and difficult-to-handle species of snakes. So that's definitely up there," he continues.

"I've dealt with wild crocodiles. I dealt with one that was like 15-16 ft. long — in the wild underwater with it by myself. That was insane."

Gillette explains that education is key to helping people better understand and react to exotic animals in different settings.

"Alligators are a huge one here in Florida. Everybody thinks they're out to get you, that they want to attack you, that if a gator sees you, it wants to chase you," Gillette points out.

"There are 1.2 million alligators in the state of Florida, and there are about a thousand people per day that move to the state of Florida, 99.9% of which are native to alligators. So we have literally millions of humans living right alongside gators within a quarter of a mile, every day with no problem," he says.

"Usually, when we do have a problem, it's because somebody did something foolish. It's almost always the nuisance person, not the nuisance gator. You've got to have common sense. They're not out to get you, but don't feed them. Don't swim in their habitat. Don't have pets and kids near the water's edge. If everybody in Florida knew those three things, we would negate 99% of all alligator-human conflicts."

In sharing his work on social media, Gillette has also shared the photography side of his business, which allows him to express his love of animals in a different way.

"When I was growing up there, there was no social media or anything like that. I would see these incredible animals out in the wild and I'd tell my friends and they wouldn't believe me. So then I got a camera just to be able to show people what I was seeing," he says.

"I kind of fell in love with the art of photography and trying to take photos of these animals. Social media arose and I started posting the photos of the animals I had seen. I'd already been taking the photos just for myself for years now, a lot of people enjoyed them."

He appreciates the ability to "control the content and how I want to portray animals," in hopes to helping educate others.

"When I've done TV work, it really was dramatized and sensationalized. Everything's about fear and it was very, very rarely about showing the intelligence or the beauty of the animal. It's amazing to be able to portray animals in an actual truthful light and show their intelligence and show their beauty."

Despite the wholesome nature of the work Gillette does, he does find some criticism in his online spaces.

"A quote I get from a lot of people is, 'I started following you because I was watching and waiting to see you get killed' or 'see you get your arm ripped off.' But then they'll say, 'I watched enough of your videos and I started to appreciate the animals,' " he says.

"If you read my comments on any viral video, there are going to be people who call me the next Steve Irwin. I think that's a compliment because I love Steve, but that's not how they mean it."

Many times, Gillette believes people get caught up "thinking in extremes" about exotic animals.

"They either think these animals are blood-thirsty, mindless killing machines or that they're puppy dogs. It is neither thing. I explain the reality is in the middle," he says.

"I tell people all the time that an alligator will always be an alligator. It's not a pet. I keep on trying to get to that middle ground, where people recognize that it's an intelligent-thinking creature that is also an apex predator. If you do stupid stuff, it will still eat you," Gillette levels.

"I tell people, 'I love gators, but they don't love me.' I always have to be very careful and cautious because it's still a wild animal. It is so dangerous, but it's not the monster that people think of."

Despite that, Gillette feels it's important to help people realize that "these animals are pretty much like us."

"I hope people realize that these are thinking, feeling creatures and we need to respect them and treat them with compassion. The main thing I focus on are the predatory animals like sharks, snakes, alligators, crocodiles, things that people are afraid of."

"People put their pets on a pedestal, but I think if you're around any kind of animal over time, you're going to realize their emotions. If you have any level of empathy and compassion, you're going to spend time with an animal and understand like, 'Wow, he has feelings just like you do.' "

"They feel afraid, they feel sad, they feel pain. We just so often cast animals aside, 'Oh, it's a dumb animal,' like we're better than them or our feelings matter more than theirs. Depending on what we're talking about, they might not have the intelligence we do, but they have most of the feelings that we have."

As he continues his work, Gillette is excited to hopefully grow what the sanctuary is capable of.

"We're trying to expand the sanctuary. We've only had the sanctuary for a year and we've come so far within that time. We've done so much to save so many animals, but we'd like to do more."

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