NEWS-STAR (Shawnee, Oklahoma) 15 June 03 Officials round up gator
Big Cabin, Oklahoma (AP): He'd been on the lam for more than a month -- a rascally reptile who escaped capture by laying low in ponds as he crawled across northeastern Oklahoma.
But freedom for this fugitive from an animal park ended this week when 15 people rounded him up behind a truck stop off the Will Rogers Turnpike.
It took the team of Oklahoma Department of Wildlife officials and volunteers nearly two hours to subdue the 350-pound reptile, named Truck Traveling Alligator by customers at Dewayne Frank's truck stop.
A helicopter and people on foot tracked the gator for more than a month before cornering it Wednesday in the Craig County pond, said Lt. Keith Green, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife game warden.
The alligator had crawled about 10 miles from Safari Joe's Zoological Park since it escaped May 8.
Seventy-five spectators watched as the crew used two fishing rods with 130-pound test line and hooks to capture the alligator late Thursday.
"As we tried to snag him, he fought us the whole way," Green said. "After he was snagged, we lifted him up and slipped a snare over his mouth and brought him to the bank of the pond where we wrapped his mouth in duct tape."
The gator was tested for parasites and viruses before being shipped off to Red Slough, a wetland reclamation project near Idabel in McCurtain County.
Officials round up gator