Not Very Important-Read anyway

Fugitive alligator becomes local folk hero

More than a week after a man-sized alligator stunned authorities by surfacing in a murky Los Angeles lake, the fugitive reptile has already become a folk hero in the gritty neighborhood where he continues to outwit wranglers and elude capture.
Dozens of residents gathered on the shore of Lake Machado on Thursday, sitting in lawn chairs or scanning the water with binoculars as park rangers with nets waited for the 7-foot (2 meter) alligator to rise out of the muck.

"We're pretty confident we'll be able to catch him," park ranger Albert Jedinak said as he stared at the calm surface of the lake. "He was actually in the net once but unfortunately we didn't have the boat ready."

Meanwhile one woman deployed her two young sons to work the crowd, hawking $10 t-shirts bearing an alligator drawing and the words: "Harbor City You Will Never Catch Me."

The alligator -- who was chased around the 53-acre (21-hectare) lake for much of the week by a professional "gator wrangler" from Colorado -- did not make an appearance, having last been spotted on Wednesday night.

The wrangler and his crew returned to Colorado on Thursday morning to secure larger nets but vowed to return next week and bag his prey.

Still waiting for that moment was animal services officer Guillermo Perea, who sat in a pick-up truck designated to drive the reptile, imprisoned in a giant green box, to the Los Angeles Zoo after it was caught.

Perea said he would not take part in the capture, adding: "I'm not that kind of guy. I get paid for dogs, not alligators."

Authorities believe the alligator was probably once an exotic pet that was abandoned when it grew too large. Alligators are not indigenous to California.

They say they were baffled to discover the reptile basking in the lake at the center of a city park, though they suspect it had been living there for about two months, dining on scraps left behind by fishermen and bread intended for the birds.

Though the creature was originally thought to be a reptile called a Caiman, the professional wrangler has since opined that it is in fact an alligator.

"I don't think you could say they didn't catch the gator for lack of effort," said local Paul Smith, who has spent much of the past two days watching the action at the lake. "They'll get him eventually. They'll figure something out."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050819/od_nm/life_alligator_dc

 

shiii i got about 5 gators in my back yard right now. theres one been hangin aroung thats about 13 feet easy. some times ill be fishin and he'll snap my line. sucks when he cahses me back in the house, but oh well, seein an alligator is alot cooler than catchin a fish anyday.

 

I wanna smack myself for reading that

 

I wanna smack you for posting about it

 

alligators are scary.

 

'specially them land ones native to the high deserts of California.....

 

lol..............i know huh? when i was little we babysat for one, our neighbor owned this little alligator, believe me it was scary and he was only like a foot long if that. But i remember he would sit there and make these hiss like noises.

 

did you feed it kittens?

 

ewwwwww no we didnt feed it kittens!! If I remember right we fed it raw liver.

 

kitten liver?

 

OMG!!! NO WE DID NOT FEED IT ANY KITTENS or KITTEN PARTS. that just wouldnt have been right.. !!

 

poor gator, chained up and no kitties

 

Who will be the first to write a folk song about "The 'Gator from Harbor City...."

He was just there for the kittens,
That Harbor City gator....
Just them and not their mittens,
and he'll be full till later...

haha...that's all I've got.