High-tech Alligators

"Would you be less intimidated by a hat-wearing alligator moving farther inland than an alligator without one?"
I would not be intimidated, hat or hatless, I would treat this as a technical business opportunity, but I would exploit the hat-wearing fellows.

Alligators are carnivorous opportunists, eating fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. What they eat is largely determined by their size. However, they were recently reported to also eat fruit such as wild grapes, elderberries, and citrus fruits directly from trees.

Therefore alligators fitted with GPS could be harnessed as fruitpickers. All it needs is a basket inserted in the reptile's throat, to prevent it swallowing the picked fruit. The concept is not dissimilar to the "fishing cormorants" of China and Japan, who wear a constricting collar that prevents them swallowing the fish they catch. Instead they are trained to bring the fish back to their owner and are rewarded after a few catches, with a small fish they can swallow.

Exploited immigrant labor would no longer be our fruit pickers, instead an army of alligators could do that work. Undiscerning beasts would yield fruit salad, while picky ones could be summoned through a beep via their enhanced GPS, to bring back a singular basket of oranges, or strawberries, etc.

Of course, the fruit needs washing to remove alligator saliva. This is far less revolting a concept than the Indonesian coffee made from beans eaten then excreted by the Asian palm civet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwak

LOL! Great answer, and let's not forget the truffle dogs, les chien truffieres, who are retrieving the truffles so that the original pickers, pigs, won't swallow them.