NEWSDAY (Melville, New York) 09 February 05 Mom says, 'Later, gator' (Nedra Rhone)
Police recovered a 2-1/2-foot alligator from the doorstep of a Bethpage home after a fed-up mother cast the creature out of her son's in-house menagerie.
"It started hissing at me," said Debbie Olic, mother of Michael Olic, 17, who brought the reptile home. "That thing almost gave me a heart attack."
The alligator, though a little chilly after cooling out on the porch, was healthy and doing well, said Bob O'Brien of Bellmore, a retired Nassau officer who in the past has gained a reputation for dealing with reptiles turned over to authorities.
O'Brien took in the animal after Nassau Emergency Services Unit picked it up Tuesday after 2 p.m. Michael Olic called police to pick up the animal after his mother complained to him, officials said.
The male alligator is probably a couple of years old, O'Brien said. Full grown, he could reach a length of 15 feet.
"He needs to be wet down a little bit," O'Brien said. The alligator, whose mouth was bandaged shut Tuesday, possibly until tomorrow, was preparing to take a warm bath in a tub at O'Brien's home. O'Brien said he would transfer the animal to a tank and feed him a meal of goldfish.
Olic said her son, a student at Nassau BOCES, wants to work with animals. He has worked at a pet store and an animal shelter, and sometimes brings animals home, she said. He has three dogs and has played host to ducks, turtles and other animals while finding homes for them, Debbie Olic said. Michael Olic was not available for comment.
He thought the cage his parents gave him, designed to hold small animals, would accommodate the alligator, his mother said. But she said when she went into the room and the animal hissed at her, she lost it. "I refuse to have these things in my house anymore," said Debbie Olic, who also has been chased around the house by her son's ferrets.
O'Brien said he's seen alligators on Long Island before, mostly in ponds in the spring. Left outside in winter, the animals generally die, he said. Eventually, O'Brien said he hopes to be able to get the animal "back to its environment," somewhere in the southeastern United States.
Debbie Olic, doesn't care, as long as it's out of her house. "I had other ideas for that thing," she said.
Mom says, 'Later, gator'