7-Foot Alligator Washes Ashore on South Carolina Beach

[rockin'robin]

Rainer Hengst expected to see his family surfing the waves, not an alligator.

Officials tracked and caught a 7-foot alligator that came up on the beach in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, Sunday morning, police told ABC News today.

Hengst noticed a commotion on the beach and a small crowd gathered to watch an alligator swim close to shore. He took his camera to the beach to get photos of his family surfing the swell, but was able to shoot photos of the alligator instead.

The alligator would come in to about knee-deep water and then go back out,” Hengst said today.

“It’s unusual to see alligators in the ocean, but not unheard of. I’ve lived here for 10 years and this was my first time seeing one out there,” he added.

Police on four-wheelers followed the slow-moving alligator for two hours as it traveled about a mile up the shore. The contracted gator removal team was able to lasso the alligator and relocate it away from the beach, police chief Michael Fanning said today.

Surfers and beachgoers got back in the water once the alligator was caught.

This is the second time this summer police have had to remove an alligator stuck in the ocean's current, Fanning said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/foot-alligator-washes-ashore-south-carolina-beach/story?id=32849156

 

[rockin'robin]

3-foot alligator caught jaywalking in Manhattan

There is an urban legend that says alligators roam the sewers of New York. But for police officers, the legend suddenly developed teeth when they discovered a three-foot alligator trying to cross 205 Street and Ninth Avenue on Thursday afternoon.


Staff at the New York Animal Care Centers, where police took the gator, said it died Friday morning.

“We have no knowledge of the conditions [the alligator] had lived in prior to his arrival that contributed to his death,” officials at the non-profit said, in a statement to the New York Daily News.

Medical staff said when the reptile arrived they “removed the duct tape that had been placed around its snout,” and housed it in “an aquarium type setting with a small shallow pool of water along with a supplemental heat element.”

Officials can only speculate as to whether the alligator had been an escaped pet, had been dumped, or “just came up river.”

Police from the 34 Precinct took to Twitter about the incident.

http://www.rt.com/usa/310715-alligator-caught-jaywalking-manhattan/