TRIBUNE-REVIEW (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) 21 September 06 Alligator -- free to a good home (Allison M. Heinrichs)
Bob McDonough had quite an adventure Monday evening when he took his 5-year-old daughter to Frick Park to play.
Ten minutes from ending their visit, McDonough almost stepped on a 2-foot-long alligator sitting in the water by Nine Mile Run near Regent Square.
"I grew up around that park, and I've been in there 20,000 times," said McDonough, 47, of Etna. "I'm used to seeing chipmunks, but not alligators."
McDonough and his daughter, Molly, watched the gator before leaving the park.
Concerned that the pale yellow-and-black-striped alligator wasn't moving much and had some cuts around its mouth, McDonough called his cousin, Tom McDonough, an electrician with an interest in wildlife.
Tuesday morning, Tom McDonough, 45, of O'Hara, went to the park with a net to see if he could rescue the alligator, which he believes is an abandoned pet.
Tom McDonough said he walked past the gator twice before he spotted it in about 6 inches of water. He couldn't get it in a net, so he donned heavy gloves and grabbed it. The 2-pound gator didn't put up much of a fight.
"He's really lethargic, because it's cold out," Tom McDonough said. "He was easy to catch."
"They're cold-blooded, which means they don't maintain an internal furnace like we do," said Henry Kacprzyk, curator of reptiles at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium. "If it's cold, as it is today, they're going to be much more sluggish and can die in very cold conditions."
Kacprzyk, who saw a photo of the gator, said it is a North American Alligator and probably is 2 or 3 years old. They normally live in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana and can grow to more than 13 feet and live into their 60s.
The Frick Park alligator's teeth are barely a millimeter long, though they're razor sharp. It probably didn't pose much of a threat to park-goers and likely couldn't kill a small dog, Kacprzyk said.
The zoo receives 10 to 15 calls each year from people who get alligators as pets, but can't care for them when they get bigger. The zoo can't take the alligators because they would end up with too many to care for, Kacprzyk said.
Tom McDonough is keeping the gator in a cooler in the back of his truck until he can find a home for it.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with it," he said. "Know anyone who'd like a good alligator?"
Grabbin' gators
At least six other alligators have turned up in Western Pennsylvania neighborhoods in the past decade.
• A group of people in Tarentum caught a 2-foot-long alligator near a boat dock in the Allegheny River in September 2005. The gator had escaped from a backyard pen in Brackenridge, and police reunited it with its owner.
• Tim Coleman, of Chicora, Butler County, captured a 4-foot-long alligator along Route 422 in Butler County in June 2005. It was turned over to the Tri-State Herpetological Society.
• Tim Rodriguez, of Beaver County, caught a 3-foot-long alligator in the Beaver River near New Brighton in August 2005. A few hours after that gator was caught, another one was found.
• New Kensington, Westmoreland County, police caught a 3-foot-long alligator in an alley in June 1999. The Pittsburgh Herpetological Society took it.
• Dan Dunmire, an employee at the Schenley Industrial Park in Gilpin, Armstrong County, caught a 3-foot-long alligator in the Kiski River near the industrial park in October 1998.
Alligator -- free to a good home