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PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDK) - A man walking his dog got quite the surprise Thursday evening.
While walking on Sebring Avenue in Beechview, the man saw a five-foot long alligator in front of a garage.
Zone 6 Police were called and they formed a perimeter around the gator to make sure it did not escape or threaten anyone in the area.
Police say the “alligator was agitated and hissing”.
Animal Care & Control arrived on the scene and worked with police to corner the alligator against the garage and get it into custody.
The gator was then transported to the Humane Animal Rescue in the East End.
“They typically aren’t aggressive animals that are going to, you know, hunt you down when they are hungry,” Humane Animal Rescue CEO Dan Rossi told KDKA Radio’s Lynne Hayes-Freeland on KDKA Radio Friday afternoon. “They are going to seek out food. We weren’t sure how long this guy was out, how long he’s been on his own. He certainly could be a threat to a dog, a cat. If somebody actually didn’t know he was in a bust and walked over him, you could lose an arm or a leg from him from a bite.”
No one was injured.
It’s the second alligator captured in Pittsburgh in the past two months.
In May, one was spotted and captured near Riverfront Park on the Southside.
Alligators are not native to Pennsylvania and would not survive the winter.
Rossi told Lynne that when Humane Animal Rescue holds an alligator, they hold them as if they were a stray to see if the animal has an owner or if it was dumped. “The first one that came in on May 18th, we did the stray hold and when the stray hold was over, nobody came forth so we are pretty sure that animal got too big and some person dumped him.”
“He is going to a zoo in New Jersey, the Cape May Zoo. About twice a year they work with croc encounters in Tampa, Florida,” Rossi said. “They come up and take their excess reptiles. So our first guy will eventually make his way down to Tampa, Florida, and be in croc encounters and live his life out the way he should.”
As for the Beechview alligator?
“We’ve gotten a report, nothing is confirmed yet, that there is an owner actually looking for him,” Rossi said. “We are trying to make contact with this gentleman. So it might just be the case where his guy slipped out of the house, slipped out of his pen and got away and was not abandoned. But we don’t know that for sure yet.”
If the alligator does in fact have an owner, Rossi told Lynne that the alligator could potentially be returned. “Legally, it is okay to own an alligator in the state of Pennsylvania. There’s nothing wrong with it. It is illegal to abandon or dump them.”
“So it would first be determined if the animal accidentally got out. If that’s the case, most likely, our humane agent will also check to make sure it is a humane housing situation for this guy,” Rossi said. “If that all checks out, he will go back to where he is originally from.”
If you see an alligator call 911 right away.
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