What do wildlife photo encounters teach the public about respecting animals?

GOLD STANDARD • BEST PRACTICES • TAPED SNOUT?

Photographs taken and posted to social media in 2026 show visitors holding alligators at St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida. In the close-up images accompanying this feature, transparent tape is visible around an alligator’s snout, holding its jaws shut. The images raise a question that reaches beyond one facility: What does taping an animal’s jaws shut for a photo teach the public about respecting wildlife?

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St. Augustine Alligator Farm is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Its advertised offerings include tortoise and sloth encounters, a crocodile feeding-platform experience, and a behind-the-scenes tour involving ambassador animals. Its birthday packages also advertise photographs with an alligator. These activities differ in their handling, contact, and opportunities for animal choice, and each deserves evaluation on its own terms. Here, the focus is the use of restrained alligators for visitor photographs—and how that practice measures against AZA’s published expectations.

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What AZA’s Own Documents Say

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AZA’s 2026 Accreditation Standards & Related Policies applies its ambassador-animal framework to animals presented for intended visitor contact, including touching and feeding. Calling an activity a photo opportunity does not place it outside that definition. Standard 1.5.4 requires a written ambassador-animal policy incorporating AZA’s facility-policy recommendations, as well as individual risk-management plans. Animal safety and wellbeing must be assured outside the primary enclosure.

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The referenced Recommendations for Developing a Facility Ambassador Animal Policy, approved by AZA’s Board in July 2022, calls for presentations that respect species and individual traits, represent natural behavior, and ensure comfort and safety. That invites a direct question: How does the facility assess those expectations when an alligator is held with its jaws taped shut?

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Safety Does Not Settle the Welfare Question

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There can be compelling reasons to restrain an animal for essential care. A visitor photograph requires its own justification. Even if jaw restraint reduces the risk of a bite, that addresses only part of the decision. The encounter still warrants scrutiny of its purpose, its effects on the animal, and the alternatives available.

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The photographs do not establish how long the tape remained in place, how frequently an individual participated, or whether an animal suffered injury or distress. They do show the restraint used during the pictured encounters. That is sufficient to ask for the handling protocols and welfare evidence behind the practice.

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Choice Must Mean Something for the Animal

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The July 2022 recommendations call for participation choices wherever possible, recognition of stress, staff authority to withdraw animals, and appropriate time limits and rest. For an alligator held for photographs, what signals lead staff to decline or end an encounter? How are willingness and tolerance distinguished? What limits apply to repeated handling?

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The facility itself recognizes the importance of choice in its published sloth-encounter description. It says participation uses positive reinforcement and that staff do not pick up the sloths or undertake activities that remove their choice. Different species require different approaches, but the relevant question remains how the alligator’s own opportunities for choice are provided and assessed.

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The Encounter Can Contradict the Lesson

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AZA’s recommendations caution against conflicting messages, using the example of petting an animal while telling visitors it makes a poor pet. An encounter may include accurate information about an animal’s biology or conservation, yet its physical presentation can communicate something else.

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Posing with a restrained wild animal may normalize the idea that wildlife is available for personal handling and souvenir photographs. Whether visitors actually take away that message requires evaluation; enjoyment alone cannot answer the question. The public deserves evidence of what the encounter adds educationally, and whether comparable learning could be achieved through observation without holding the animal.

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What Does the Photograph Communicate?

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AZA’s Guidelines for Animal Imagery in Public Communications, effective November 12, 2025, advises respectful interactions and discourages images suggesting domestication or a pet–owner relationship. It generally advises against photographs of people holding animals outside veterinary, medical, or professional care contexts, while allowing exceptions depending on species and circumstances.

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This document is communications guidance, not a policy prohibiting encounters. It addresses AZA and institutional communications, so visitors’ personal posts do not by themselves establish noncompliance. Its relevance here is the concern it identifies: photographs can shape how people understand wild animals and our relationship with them.

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Respect and Dignity Are Established Principles

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Older AZA guidance reproduced in the 2013 Tapir Care Manual states: “The animal is used in a respectful, safe manner and in a manner that does not misrepresent or degrade the animal.” This is historical general program-animal guidance, not an alligator-specific rule against taping. It nevertheless documents AZA’s longstanding attention to how animals are presented.

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AZA’s Code of Professional Ethics also grounds the profession in “respect for the dignity of the animals in our care.” These principles deserve practical explanations. What does respect require when an animal’s jaws are immobilized to facilitate a photograph? How is the animal’s experience weighed against the visitor’s desired experience?

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Accountability the Public Can Ask For

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A meaningful response would explain handling frequency, restraint duration, rest schedules, species-specific welfare indicators, and the criteria for removing an animal from the program. It would also explain what educational outcomes are measured and what evidence justifies the contact involved.

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This feature does not establish an AZA accreditation violation or claim that AZA expressly prohibits jaw taping. It examines a documented practice against published principles and asks how those principles are put into effect. Visitors can ask these questions before booking, support wildlife education through observation, and choose experiences that explain how animal choice and wellbeing are protected.

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A “gold standard” should invite scrutiny of the individual encounter. The animal’s interests deserve to remain central—even when the visitor wants a photograph.

Original research sources

Part 2 of our “Not a Pet” series.

Explores how wildlife presentations can communicate messages beyond spoken educational content—and why the behavior visitors observe may influence what they understand about respecting wild animals. A particularly relevant companion to our examination of alligator photo encounters.

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KeepingWildlifeWild.org

Evidence • Education • Accountability

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How You Can Help:

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Together, we can encourage a more informed conversation about the treatment and protection of wildlife.