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DAILY BREEZE (Torrance, California) 20 September 05 Gatorland team quits search for Reggie in a huff - Councilwoman Janice Hahn's endorsement of Louisiana evacuee "T-Bone" Quinn infuriated the Florida gator catchers. (Donna Littlejohn)
Florida gator wranglers pulled out of town Monday, furious over the public ridicule they said they were forced to endure over the weekend when Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn brought in a big-talking Katrina evacuee to help catch a loose alligator in Harbor City.
Introduced through a Los Angeles Times reporter, Thomas "T-Bone" Quinn was escorted by Hahn to Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park on Saturday for introductions to the media. The councilwoman said she was "completely won over" when she first talked to the Louisiana evacuee staying temporarily at the Dream Center in Los Angeles. He said he wanted to "give back" to the city for giving him temporary housing and had a lifetime of experience catching alligators.
Heavily tattooed and boasting of his gator-wrangling abilities, Quinn showed up with camping gear and a movie agent in tow. He didn't waste any time hurling insults aimed at the Gatorland crew.
"I just hope I can keep Gatorland off my back," he was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times. "I ain't telling them nothing. That pontoon boat (they're using) is retarded."
Gatorland was not amused.
Team leader Tim Williams said Monday his crew was "blindsided" by Hahn's decision to bring Quinn in on the job they'd agreed to do for free under an arrangement with the city's Department of Recreation and Parks.
"I am not going to allow Gatorland to be referred to as 'retarded,' " Williams said. "I will not allow some swamp rat to walk into a situation and make comments about Gatorland and this team. We conducted ourselves in a professional manner."
Hahn said Monday she was surprised that Williams took offense, saying that Quinn later apologized for the remarks and that all of the men seemed to be getting along by Saturday night.
"They were out there swapping alligator stories, giving all kinds of advice to each other," Hahn said.
Low-key and methodical, the four-man team from Gatorland, a popular reptile park in Orlando, Fla., spent the past week working quietly in the darkened park. While their earlier four-day visit several weeks ago was marked by bright television lights and lakeside interviews, this past week the crew kept media trucks and frustrated reporters at bay, confined to a distant parking lot as team members set out bait, lay waiting in the swampy vegetation and cruised the far reaches of the lake in canoes. They worked into the pre-dawn hours every night.
"We did not deserve to be treated like this after all the work we did," Williams said. "Obviously, this was very political. (Hahn) played me personally like a little puppet and I don't appreciate it at all.
"I'm very bitter."
Williams said he is writing a letter to Hahn this week to formally complain.
Hahn said she was taken aback by the reaction.
"I thought it wouldn't hurt to have somebody else's advice," she said. "I honestly thought they could all work together."
She praised Gatorland's efforts.
"The Gatorland guys worked their hearts out," Hahn said. "They worked free of charge and the conditions were rough. They've been away from home and they were tired, so I'll give them that. But they didn't catch the gator."
The dustup is the latest twist in the 5-week-old saga about Reggie, the alligator on the lam that has received worldwide press, produced a colorful cast of characters and even spawned a devious but successful media hoax.
While upset with Hahn, Williams had nothing but praise for the city's Department of Recreation and Parks staff, lifeguards and volunteers who have helped out in the gator search during Gatorland's two separate stays.
"We left there with the greatest love for Los Angeles," said Williams who was reached by telephone Monday while on a layover on the crew's flight home. "Los Angeles did not do this to us. The park rangers, (recreation and parks staff) Ron (Berkowitz) and Fred (Dowell) were the most loving, kindest people we've ever worked with. I'm just so sorry someone's political agenda stepped in the way of taking care of business."
Hahn said politics was not a factor in the decision to bring Quinn out to help.
"This guy was from Louisiana, he'd been reading the stories about Reggie and he wanted to thank Los Angeles," Hahn said. "The only agenda I have is catching Reggie and I thought this was an opportunity to give this evacuee something to do."
Since his debut Saturday, Quinn has abruptly disappeared from sight, with city officials explaining Sunday that they needed to do a background check and decide whether he could even participate without any insurance.
Hahn said Monday, however, that she intends to keep Quinn involved.
"He's filled out paperwork to become a volunteer with the city of Los Angeles," which will take care of the insurance questions, Hahn said, adding that background checks appear to have come back clean. "I welcome T-Bone's experience and advice and participation in the process."
Among other concerns after Quinn's weekend debut were his graphic descriptions of how he usually stabs alligators in the brain to kill them after they're caught, but would abide by city rules to keep Reggie alive.
"We're in California here, not in the bayou," recreation and parks Superintendent Ron Berkowitz said in a Los Angeles Times article. "We don't want any harm coming to Reggie. We want to capture him and move on."
"Nobody in the city of Los Angeles knows how to catch an alligator," Hahn said of the ongoing difficulties the city has encountered. "We have no experience in recreation and parks, the zoo or animal control."
Attempts to reach Quinn on Monday at the Dream Center were not successful but Hahn said she intends to invite him to a strategy session later this week with top recreation and parks and Los Angeles Zoo officials.
Williams said the Gatorland crew will not be back for another try.
"We put in two weeks of hundreds of exhaustive, backbreaking man-hours and thousands of dollars," Williams said. "We were not there because of the lights and cameras and press."
As for Reggie, Williams said maybe the city should just leave him alone.
"I understand that the park has a concern with what to do with the alligator," Williams said. "I think they should just keep the thing in there. Post signs, fence it off."
Hahn said it's an option she may consider, provided it's legal.
"I think we need to seriously consider the fact that he may not be caught," she said.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/1729326.html

KESQ (Palm Springs, California) 19 September 05 Katrina evacuee told by LA officials to quit hunt for gator
Los Angeles: A Hurricane Katrina evacuee who thought he could catch "Reggie," the alligator lurking in a Los Angeles lake, has been taken off the job.
Thomas "T-Bone" Quinn, who has been living in a shelter for those displaced by the hurricane, believed he could catch the elusive reptile.
But city officials turned down his offer after learning that he has no liability insurance and no known credentials.
Gator wranglers have tried a few times to catch the 7-foot gator that was dumped into Lake Machado more than a month ago.
A former L-A police officer was arrested on August 24th for allegedly dumping the alligator in the lake when it got too big to keep as a pet.
http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=3866892

LOS ANGELES TIMES (California) 19 September 05 Bayou Gator Catcher Told to Cool His Heels - Municipal red tape dashes plans by New Orleans evacuee to rid Lake Machado of its elusive reptile, Reggie. (Jason Felch)
A day after being tapped to track down an urban alligator in a Harbor City lake, a New Orleans evacuee was taken off the job Sunday after city officials determined that he had no liability insurance and no known credentials.
Thomas "T-Bone" Quinn had been invited Saturday to join the effort to capture the alligator named Reggie just a week after arriving at a Los Angeles shelter for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
The invitation came from Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who represents the district around Lake Machado, where the pet gator was allegedly dumped by his owners more than a month ago.
Quinn touted himself as a swamp-savvy bayou resident with a fondness for gator meat who could make quick work of Reggie. He dismissed efforts by the Florida-based Gatorland crew, professional gator-grabbers whom Reggie has eluded for more than a month, calling their pontoon boat "retarded" and saying he hoped that they would keep "off my back."
But after Quinn's brief outing on the lake Saturday evening with Hahn and the Gatorland crew, city officials pulled the plug on the plan."We have to protect ourselves and the people of Los Angeles. We can't have anybody jump in there with a Bowie knife," said Ron Berkowitz, superintendent of the harbor area for the city Recreation and Parks Department. "It's nothing against T-Bone. I want him to feel part of the world again, and we appreciate his offer."
Berkowitz said some of Quinn's statements to the media also raised concerns about how he would treat Reggie. On Saturday, Quinn had described grabbing Louisiana gators by the legs, flipping them over and driving a knife into their brains.
City officials knew nothing about Quinn and planned to conduct a background check, as they would for any city employee, Berkowitz said.
"We're in California here, not in the bayou," Berkowitz said. "We don't want any harm coming to Reggie. We want to capture him and move on."
Gatorland's crew wrapped up their efforts Sunday as scheduled, and the city was looking for a new wrangling outfit, Berkowitz said. Until that contractor has been hired and properly insured, city officials have asked Quinn to return to the Dream Center shelter, where he is temporarily housed with other victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"We'll get him back in action," said Hahn, adding that she had no regrets about inviting the help of Quinn, whom she first learned of from a Times reporter.
Interviewed by phone Sunday, Quinn said he was disheartened that his offer to help had become so complicated.
"It kinda sounds like I gotta fight just to help out," Quinn said, adding that city officials had given him a bunch of forms to fill out. He said he was surprised at the media attention his comments before television cameras Saturday had attracted.
"I'm just an old country boy, and I don't know the media really," Quinn said, noting that the team from Gatorland — an Orlando, Fla., theme park and wildlife preserve — had taken offense at some of his comments. "I'm not good at this stuff, TV blah, blah, blah. I'm from Louisiana in the swamp. We do things different there."
Hahn said she had helped ease hard feelings between Quinn and the team from Gatorland before they set out for a sunset search Saturday. Once on the boat, Quinn and the Florida crew exchanged gator wisdom, swapping tips about the virtues of flat-bottomed mud boats versus pontoons and quibbling over what kind of bait was best for luring gators out of their hiding spots.
"This whole world of gator wranglers is something we're not used to," Hahn said.
By Sunday, Quinn said he was impressed by Gatorland's efforts and admitted that he had underestimated the challenge of capturing Reggie in the 59-acre lake, which he had called a "mudhole" Saturday.
"You're binded by so many things. You can't even get in the water it's so polluted," Quinn said.
After speaking with a reporter, Quinn handed his cellphone to a woman who described herself as an independent agent representing Quinn.
Jennifer Burns-Hills said she was "trying to protect T-bone" and that she hoped to get a book deal or TV movie "like Jessica Lynch," the rescued prisoner of war who survived an ambush in Iraq.
Burns-Hills described how Quinn had escaped from New Orleans, abandoning his truck and two Harley-Davidson motorcycles to rescue a young family.
"That's the movie of the week, not Reggie," Burns-Hill said.
T-Bone is the latest to be foiled by Reggie, who was first seen in the lake Aug. 12 and has attracted lakeside crowds and national media attention as he eluded some of the nation's best gator catchers.
In mid-August, authorities flew in Colorado gator wrangler Jay Young, but the Crocodile Dundee look-alike had no luck.
A two-week search by the Gatorland crew was suspended in late August, and the exhausted team wrapped up its second attempt Sunday.
Last week, media reports circulated that Young had returned to Los Angeles and captured Reggie in a matter of minutes. The reports proved spurious, however. Young confirmed that he had never left Colorado, and Reggie reappeared in Lake Machado soon after.
"It's Reggie 3, experts zero," said Hahn, adding that it might be time to consider other options.
"I think we'll have to take a hard look at the possibility that this gator is not going to be caught."
By Sunday, Quinn too was rethinking Reggie's fate:
"I think Reggie outta just stay where he's at, if you ask me."
Bayou Gator Catcher Told to Cool His Heels

I never heard about a guy named "T-bone" Quinn, but the staff at Gatorland is very experinced. So...good luck to the L.A. gator.

NO kidding! Although I think the term, "Swamp rat" was pretty funny when they were tagging him back for his remarks. Gatorland handlers are VERY experienced so I am not too sure if this "Bayou Wrangler" can hang. I just hope they dont resort in killing him. It would sure be a shame.

Chris
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Chris Law
U.A.P.P.E.A.L. (Uniting a Proactive Primate and Exotic Animal League)
Herpetoculture Element Representative