NEWSDAY (New York, New York) 12 December 05 LI gator relocates to 'alligator capital of the world' (Erik German)
For 10 years, children at Southside Middle School in Rockville Centre told stories about the giant alligator living in the basement.
It sounds like a youthful myth, concocted to confront boredom -- like lunch ladies serving up rats or aliens occupying the principal's office -- except that the 500-pound carnivorous reptile lurking under Southside was real.
Well, lurking is probably the wrong word. It's hard to fear an animal named Harvey who, until his departure for an alligator theme park last week, was the star of Southside's wildly popular basement zoo, run by technology teacher Brian Kerr.
Kerr is quick to point out that the alligator's good behavior was ensured by a steady diet of Perdue Oven Stuffer Roasters -- garlic-flavored chickens, it seems, were his favorite -- and a spacious sandy enclosure fashioned from bullet-proof Plexiglas.
"He's a good boy," said Kerr, 56, whose approaching retirement has led him to dismantle the zoo he's run for almost 20 years, which was home to exotic creatures such as chinchillas, Madagascar-hissing cockroaches, spiny-tailed Uromastyx lizards and dwarf Nigerian goats. The alligator, Kerr said, "has never known pain, never known abuse, he's been well fed, he trusted me."
This may be why Harvey's departure was greeted with sadness even by Rockville Centre Schools Superintendent William Johnson -- the man who'd have been held ultimately responsible if the children's 10-foot predacious reptile had ever gotten loose and done something, well, predatory.
"We've always maintained that the precautions we took kept the kids safe," Johnson said, adding that only Kerr was allowed to enter Harvey's 200-square-foot locked pen, and the teacher possessed all of the necessary licenses from the Department of Environmental Conservation to legally keep the animal.
Johnson did not mention that Kerr is also a brawny, Harley-riding former Marine who seems like the sort of man able to wrestle an alligator, if need be. Johnson did stress that when Harvey arrived at the school -- after being rescued from the Islip Animal Shelter in 1995 -- the young reptile cut a modest figure.
"You have to remember that Harvey grew up here. When he came to us he was only 18 to 24 inches long," Johnson said. The superintendent was on hand for the little guy's arrival, and he helped tape the much bigger alligator's mouth shut on Monday when the 18-year-old Harvey -- Long Islander to the last -- retired to Florida.
"He's just a teenager, but he grew out of Long Island," Johnson said of the alligator, which experts say could live more than 60 years. "Don't look at it as a retirement, he just graduated from middle school."
After a 24-hour 1,100-mile van ride, which Harvey spent wrapped in comforters, he took up residence among the 1,000 other crocs and gators at Orlando's Gatorland, a theme park professing to be the "alligator capital of the world."
There, for $16.95, guests can observe alligators in naturalistic settings, buy gator-themed merchandise -- Gummy Gators sell for $2.95 per box, Bubba Gator Habanero Steak Sauce goes for $5.95 a bottle -- and even pet a few of the park's tamer beasts.
"We have several animals here that are conditioned," said Michael Hilerman, one of the park's head alligator trainers. "There's an alligator here in our breeding marsh by the name of Pops, you can sit on his back."
Hilerman said that whether Harvey will ever become so tamed is a question only time can answer. Right now the alligator is undergoing what trainers call "immersion therapy," whereby the solitary Harvey will be habituated to the sounds and smells of gators in nearby enclosures during the course of a year.
Harvey is currently penned alone in a wooded, 400-square-foot enclosure complete with a 6-foot deep swimming tank. In his new home, Hilerman said, it became evident that the alligator may need immersion therapy of a wholly different kind.
"When he got into the water he was a little disoriented because he didn't feel anything beneath his feet and he was a little wobbly for a few seconds," Hilerman said.
The next day, the trainer said, waterborn-Harvey did fine. But in those first moments the middle school alligator, accustomed to a 2-foot deep fiberglass tub, did not yet know how to swim.
LI gator relocates to 'alligator capital of the world'