DETROIT FREE PRESS (Michigan) 01 April 08 Crocodile sighting report was a crock (Christy Arboscello)
A report of a crocodile sighting in an Ypsilanti park was, well, a crock.
YpsiNews.com Editor and Publisher Steve Pierce pulled an April Fool’s Day prank on his 2,000 e-mail subscribers and visitors to his Web site with a story he wrote today about a sunbathing crocodile on the bank of the Huron River in Riverside Park.
Inspired by actual accounts in Augusta Township of people saying they saw an alligator last year, Pierce bought a three-foot-long fake reptile with a curled tail for $80 online. He then ventured Saturday to the park to plant and photograph the faux creature wading in the water and on the grass.
As he carted it around in a blanket, he worried passersby would spot him and, thereby, ruin the joke.
“Somebody’s going to bust me for doing this and there’s just going to be hell to pay,” he admitted to thinking.
While he received several calls and about a dozen e-mails regarding the article, his readers told him they were intrigued at first but quickly realized the bogus story—complete with a fictitious alligator expert and a comment from Washtenaw County Sheriff Daniel Minzey from the 2007 reports of the suspected alligator sightings in Augusta Township—was a good-natured joke.
And, it’s not the first time Pierce took a break from reporting on city affairs to pull his readers’ legs. Last April Fool’s Day, he wrote that oil was discovered in Ypsilanti.
Crocodile sighting report was a crock