WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL (N Carolina) 08 September 07 Officials order 2 alligators killed - They say they acted to protect wild population (Jim Sparks)
State wildlife officials ordered the killings of two small alligators that had been captured in the wild this week, including one found at the Graylyn Conference Center.
Wildlife officials said that the reasoning for killing the animals involved three main factors:
- They want to protect wild animals. They said they had no way of knowing whether the captured alligators were domestic animals that had been released, or what diseases they may have been exposed to.
- Places that normally take rescued alligators were full.
- Officials didn’t want to perpetuate the idea that releasing exotic pets into the wild will result in their rescue and future care.
Chris Kreh, a district wildlife biologist with the N. C. Wildlife Resources Commission in Dobson, was one of several officials who weighed in on the decision.
Kreh said that although he didn’t like seeing the animals destroyed, officials were trying to look out for the greater good of the state’s wildlife populations.
Kreh said that the real problem is people who try to make pets out of such animals as wild alligators, which is illegal in North Carolina.
Kreh said that because alligators aren’t native to Northwest North Carolina, the alligators caught in Forsyth and Iredell counties had probably been kept as pets and released when their owners got tired of them.
“Anytime a person decides to pick up an animal and bring it into captivity, they’ve essentially given that animal a death sentence in a sense,” he said. “Our animal resources are a fantastic part of our state. We want people to enjoy and appreciate them, but we also need to keep the ‘wild’ in wildlife. Anytime a wild animal becomes too accustomed to people, problems result.”
Kreh said that abandoned alligators are something he and wildlife officials statewide have to deal with every year.
The other alligator killed this week was found last Saturday in Iredell County. Animal-control officers were called to a house near Statesville after the alligator had been captured in a trash can by the home’s owner and her neighbor.
The alligators, both of which were about 2 feet long, were the third and fourth alligators found in Northwest North Carolina this summer.
The alligator in Winston-Salem was caught Sunday afternoon by a butler at Graylyn International Conference Center. He was told about the animal by a woman who saw it cross the conference center’s driveway.
Campus police at Wake Forest University had been on the lookout for the small alligator since Aug. 31 when officers verified a reported sighting by spotting the animal on a log in a pond on the grounds of Reynolda House, which is on the other side of Reynolda Road from Graylyn.
Matt Craven, a local wildlife rehabilitator, picked the alligator up Wednesday at the request of campus police. He turned it over to state wildlife officials Thursday after trying to convince them to let him find a home for the animal in one of several zoos or environmental-education centers he has contact with in other states.
Craven said he was upset that the Graylyn alligator was killed, but he understood that state officials were simply trying to follow regulations intended to protect native-animal populations.
However, he said he thinks that those rules should be altered to make finding homes for removed animals more of a priority.
“I was so damned aggravated I couldn’t see straight,” Craven said. “If an animal not native to an area needs to be removed, provisions should be in place to facilitate relocation.”
Kreh said he appreciates Craven’s sentiments and respects the work that he and other wildlife rehabilitators do. However, he disagreed with Craven about how the animals were dealt with.
Kreh said that setting a precedent of trying to keep every animal alive would do more harm than good.
“It’s sending the wrong message about taking animals into captivity,” Kreh said.
“If the general public hears that is an OK thing to do, the long-term impact is more alligators and other animals will end up being taken from the wild, and that’s a bad thing.”

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