NEWS & OBSERVER (Raleigh, N Carolina) 09 July 04 He's got a soft spot for thick-skinned beasts - 'Maladjusted' gators removed (Josh Shaffer)
Wilmington: It was only a 5-foot alligator -- puny by Jimmy English's standards -- but it had no business crawling down a Wilmington street Wednesday, where people in passing cars were trembling as if they'd seen a dinosaur.
So English, 67, a professional wildlife remover, grabbed the gator by the tail. He hopped on its back and slapped down its snout. He yanked up its jaws and lashed them shut with a rubber band.
In about five seconds, English had subdued the snapping reptile, catching only a scratch on the wrist, and he didn't charge a cent.
"I'm doing it for the poor, disoriented gators," he said. "They're just as maladjusted to the times as me."
His wrestling match on North 23rd Street was his second alligator encounter in 10 days. This particular reptile had probably wriggled out of a nearby creek.
English grew up "messing with" gators near Carolina Beach, but rapid development is pushing them increasingly onto city streets. There are just more people around, and it's more likely that a city dweller will stumble on an 8-foot reptile and scream himself silly.
"Especially Yankees," English said.
As development clears out alligator habitat, it also creates new niches for them. They turn up most often on golf courses, in stormwater retention ponds and canals.
The numbers are vague, but biologists estimate that there are several thousand alligators living in the state's coastal waters, as far up as Albemarle Sound, according to N.C. Aquariums.
Some have been spotted as far west as the Piedmont, but critter catchers in the Triangle say that's as rare as a Bigfoot sighting.
"I had one call nine years ago, when one washed in with the hurricane," said Tad Bassett of Triangle Animal Control.
The largest ever caught in the state was 12 feet, 7 inches long, N.C. Aquariums said. An 11-foot whopper is English's record.
People call his business, Wildlife Removal Service, with animal crises, and he contracts to respond to 911 animal calls through a permit with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. He baits them with marshmallows, loops a noose over their heads while they snack, and then fits them into a tube he fashioned out of drainage pipe. He then totes the beasts to remote waters.
Wednesday's catch, for example, went into the lower Cape Fear River.
English pities the gators.
They aren't dangerous, he said, unless you feed them. They're fast and strong, weighing 250 to 300 pounds when he catches them, but they're harmless if you watch them from a distance.
He recalls the time a man called him with fears that a 2-foot gator living in a stream behind his house would attack his 90-pound Labrador retriever, which liked to swim.
"Will the gator eat my dog?'' the man asked.
"Yes," English said. "If you cut it in small pieces."
He's got a soft spot for thick-skinned beasts - 'Maladjusted' gators removed