Aww Snap! Florida Woman Wrestles With Giant Gators

Meet Jeanette Rivera. Standing at 5'3" and weighing around 98 lbs., she doesn't exactly look like she'd have Herculean strength. But this 23-year-old is a professional gator wrestler – and a good one, at that! A staffer at the Everglades Alligator Farm of Florida City, Fla., Rivera spends her days giving gator-handling demonstrations to curious tourists, dragging the 100-plus-lb. creatures around a pond by their tails and temporarily taming them with ease.

By coming up from behind the gators – who can only see sideways – Rivera wows spectators by holding the reptiles' necks, covering their eyes and even resting her chin on their upper jaws, as in the picture above (taken June 6 with gator Godzilla). Though she has a level of trust – and skill – with her subjects, one false move and 2,000 pounds of pressure from the gators' iron-clad jaws will take her down.

Incredibly, Rivera has been a member of the staff since she was 14. And the animal lover says she isn't afraid of the creatures she wrestles. Her greatest fear? Ironically, she tells the Broward-Palm Beach New Times, "I'm scared to death of frogs!"

More crazy animals on PEOPLE Pets:
When Cats Fly? Furry Feline Grows Wings!
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Kate Hogan