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Alligator Captured Last Week In Big Field Did Not Survive

The alligator found here (top left) had been shot through the snout. Although it was captured and taken to the World Bird Sanctuary (WBS) hospital, it did not survive the surgery required to deal with the injury. WBS Director Crawford says the sale of exotic animals (like the baby alligators available on the Internet at prices ranging from $40 to $90) is a problem.

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY JENNIFER HELLER AND WORLD BIRD SANCTUARY

Attempts to save an alligator captured in Ste. Genevieve’s Big Field just south of Ste. Genevieve were unsuccessful, despite the efforts of veterinarians at the World Bird Sanctuary. The four-foot-long gator was captured last Wednesday. It was living in a pond created by flooding at the foot of the levee, near the area of the Marina de Gabouri.

The presence of the alligator in the field became known some four to six weeks ago.

According to Walter “Stormy Crawford,” executive director of the World Bird Sanctuary and a resident of the county, when the local who first spotted it told the story of seeing the alligator to friends they were skeptical.

“I don’t think they believed him,” Crawford said. “It was sort of a Loch Ness monster thing. But he finally told another resident, Jeff Eydmann, who went down to take a look.”

Eydmann went to the spot where the gator had been seen and confirmed its presence. He called Crawford to report it.

“Jeff kind of kept an eye on it while we figured out what to do,” Crawford said. “And he played an important role in the capture.” Local resident Charlie Stretch also was involved.

Early attempts to corral the reptile were unsuccessful. Crawford said the cool weather last Wednesday probably prompted it to be more active, and it finally moved to an area where it could be captured, although it wasn’t an easy job.

“The pond was muddy and it was hard to see the alligator,” Crawford said. “We tried a number of ways of catching it, but all we wound up with was a lot of fish. The fact that it started to move due to the cooler weather meant we were able to capture it.”

Another factor in the capture may have been the fact that the alligator was injured.

“When the rescue team got on the scene they reported that it looked like the alligator had been shot,” Crawford said. “When it arrived at the Sanctuary hospital, we discovered that it had been shot through the snout with a .22 or .32 caliber bullet. It had already lost a lot of blood and it didn’t survive the surgical procedure.”

Crawford said reports have indicated that the alligator had been owned by a local resident, who allegedly turned it loose after he was evicted from his apartment. There have been no official reports regarding who might have shot the gator, although he said he doubted it was anyone who is a hunter.

“It’s just not the kind of thing responsible hunters would do,” he said.

According to Crawford the incident is an example of a serious problem regarding exotic pets. “We’re a throw-away society,” he said. “There’s a special problem when it comes to exotic animals which are completely unsuitable as pets. People buy them because they’re cute when they’re little or they think it would be cool to have a big snake or an alligator as a pet, but as the animal grows, the owners can’t or don’t want to continue to care for them. And in bad economic times, the pressure of taking care of them grows worse. That’s when they let the animal go, thinking it can fend for itself.”

Crawford said the practice is fed by what he calls the “Free Willy Syndrome.”

“There’s this idea that animals should be free,” he said. “But that almost never works out. People forget that freedom didn’t work out so well for Keiko, the whale that performed in the Free Willy movie. After the film came out there was a successful movement to turn Keiko loose. He had spent some 23 years in captivity. Eighteen months after his release, the whale was dead.”

Crawford said he supports legislation that would ban private individuals from owning exotic animals as pets.

“It’s definitely not a good thing for the animals,” he said.

The Missouri Alliance for Animal Legislation (MAAL) calls the existing state law “one the weakest laws governing the ownership and care of dangerous exotic animals.” As a result, MAAL says, Missouri has become “a haven for disreputable owners and a hub for illegal sales of these animals.”

(Under Missouri law, “No person may keep...any deadly, dangerous, or poisonous reptile, or any deadly or dangerous reptile over eight feet long, in any place other than a properly maintained zoological park, circus, scientific, or educational institution, research laboratory, veterinary hospital, or animal refuge, unless such person has registered such animals with the local law enforcement agency in the county in which the animal is kept.” In contrast, Illinois has banned private individuals from owning alligators altogether.)

Although the notion of people flushing small alligators down toilets and the gators then growing to mega-size in sewers is mostly urban myth, the problem of gators winding up where they’re not supposed to be is absolute fact.

In July the World Bird Sanctuary was involved in the capture of a three-foot-long Florida alligator from Joachim Creek in De Soto. It is being nursed back to health at the Sanctuary hospital.

According to Crawford, the De Soto gator had damage to its teeth and nails, probably as a result of being held in “less than optimal” conditions before it was released to fend for itself. It also likely was dumped by a pet owner.

Crawford says such reptiles, even when healthy, cannot survive in the wild during Missouri’s winter weather.

The problem of released gators is not unique to Missouri. In the last few weeks or so they have been found in Massachusetts (strolling down a street in the city of Brockton), New York City, Detroit, the Chicago River, and in North Dakota, Ohio, and Indiana.

Following the discovery of the alligators in the Chicago River, Kent Vliet, a University of Florida alligator expert who tracks media reports about the reptiles, told the Associated Press that over the last three years, there have been at least 100 instances of alligators showing up in more than 15 states where they are not native.