Gator Scooped Out Of Chula Vista Pond
Officer Finds 3-Foot Gator At Heritage Park
POSTED: 8:59 am PST December 21, 2005
UPDATED: 6:08 pm PST December 21, 2005
CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- Cops are accustomed to seeing strange things, but San Diego police Officer Ken Verdone wasn't ready for what lurked just beneath the surface of the lake at Chula Vista's Heritage Park.
"Is this thing real?" he asked himself.
He did a double take, he told The San Diego Union-Tribune, "and then I did see it moving."
"It" turned out to be a 3-foot alligator.
As Verdone, off duty at the time, sized up the situation, his 7-year-old daughter, Audrey ran away with her dog.
"I pointed it out to my daughter, she grabbed her poodle, walked away. I couldn't believe we saw it in the pond," Verdone said.
Verdone summoned a nearby park employee, who radioed the city's animal care facility. Workers cordoned off the area with yellow tape, and an animal control officer scooped it out of the water with a net. Duct tape around the snout made the gator safe for handling.
Reptile breeder Rick Sturm came and picked up the reptile.
"This guy's amazingly healthy. He was just released or he's been successful at hunting. Determined by the size of tail, it's really fat," Sturm said.
The gator is probably a pet that was abandoned when it grew too large or it got lose. But the owner need not bother trying to reclaim it because owning an alligator is illegal.
Sturn said he will foster the alligator and then send it to Florida for release into the wild.
http://www.10news.com/news/5597614/detail.html
Officer Finds 3-Foot Gator At Heritage Park
POSTED: 8:59 am PST December 21, 2005
UPDATED: 6:08 pm PST December 21, 2005
CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- Cops are accustomed to seeing strange things, but San Diego police Officer Ken Verdone wasn't ready for what lurked just beneath the surface of the lake at Chula Vista's Heritage Park.
"Is this thing real?" he asked himself.
He did a double take, he told The San Diego Union-Tribune, "and then I did see it moving."
"It" turned out to be a 3-foot alligator.
As Verdone, off duty at the time, sized up the situation, his 7-year-old daughter, Audrey ran away with her dog.
"I pointed it out to my daughter, she grabbed her poodle, walked away. I couldn't believe we saw it in the pond," Verdone said.
Verdone summoned a nearby park employee, who radioed the city's animal care facility. Workers cordoned off the area with yellow tape, and an animal control officer scooped it out of the water with a net. Duct tape around the snout made the gator safe for handling.
Reptile breeder Rick Sturm came and picked up the reptile.
"This guy's amazingly healthy. He was just released or he's been successful at hunting. Determined by the size of tail, it's really fat," Sturm said.
The gator is probably a pet that was abandoned when it grew too large or it got lose. But the owner need not bother trying to reclaim it because owning an alligator is illegal.
Sturn said he will foster the alligator and then send it to Florida for release into the wild.
http://www.10news.com/news/5597614/detail.html
