The Experts Behind This Book

The seal on the cover of this book is not decoration. Croc & Gator Wise carries the Citadel Culebra expert certification because it is built on a combined lifetime of real, hands-on work with crocodilians and the reptiles that share their world — not on internet lore. Here are the people behind it.

Tom Crutchfield

Tom Crutchfield is one of the most influential figures in the history of American reptile keeping. Across six decades he has bred sturdy, difficult animals that most people only ever hope to see behind glass — pioneering the captive breeding of rare and endangered species and building a body of practical knowledge that no institution could have produced. His work with iguanas alone is legendary: the celebrated “Crutchfield” rhino iguana lines, the Cyclura rock iguanas — Lewis’s iguanas among them — and the hybrids and color projects that followed, including the famous “Crutchfield Crimson” line. The first albino Burmese python ever brought into the United States came through Tom; Bob Clark would go on to be the first to breed it. He has worked hands-on with some of the most demanding animals alive — eight-foot crocodile monitors, cobras and other venomous snakes — and trained others to handle them safely, from members of Miami’s Venom One response unit to a long list of keepers and experts who went on to shape the reptile and crocodilian world in their own right. In sixty years he was never seriously bitten, and he never relied on venom or force, only on understanding.

His crocodilian experience runs just as deep, and it is what matters most in a book like this. Tom has kept and worked nearly every kind of crocodilian there is — from Nile and saltwater crocodiles to American crocodiles and countless American alligators — handling them hands-on, day after day, across decades. Among them were critically endangered Cuban crocodiles that he brought all the way to hand-feeding through patience and an almost uncanny ability to read an animal; some of those very crocodiles live on today at Gatorland, one of America’s oldest reptile attractions. When Tom Crutchfield says an animal is dangerous, or that a certain habit will get you killed, it is worth stopping to listen. That authority is the foundation this book is built on.

Stacey Crutchfield

Stacey Crutchfield is a behavioral specialist and Tom’s partner in a lifetime of work with reptiles. Her gift is reading animals — the body language, the eyes, the subtle “weather” in a creature’s face that tells an experienced keeper whether it is calm, curious, or about to strike. She has built quiet, patient trust across the full range of them: from large, dangerous lizards like crocodile monitors and rhinoceros iguanas, to venomous snakes like cobras and vipers, to crocodilians of many kinds — including the alligators she has kept over her decades in this community. She carries a conviction that runs through every page of this book: that there is far more to these animals than most people ever see. They are intelligent, capable creatures that deserve to be understood and respected — and even appreciated for what they can do — rather than only feared. Fear has its place, because these animals can absolutely cause harm; but respect and understanding are what actually keep both people and the animals safe. That is the spirit of every page here.

Braxton Warren

Braxton Warren is the knowledge architect behind Citadel Culebra and behind this book. He has kept a wide range of reptiles across more than twenty years — from turtles and geckos to two-hundred-pound reticulated pythons and hundred-pound water monitors — and has studied crocodilians for as long as he can remember, since he was a child, learning everything he could about them and seeking out some of the most experienced crocodilian people in the world to learn from directly. His role here is that of the architect: to draw the hard-won, often unwritten knowledge out of master keepers like Tom and Stacey, add his own years of study and findings, and build it — together with the science and the hard lessons of real tragedies — into something clear, ordered, and genuinely useful to everyone. It is his work that turns a lifetime of collective expertise into the book in your hands.

That combination — real keepers with nothing left to prove, and a careful architect determined to get it right — is what that certification stands for. It is why you can trust what follows.