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mike
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Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 3134
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 Posted: 6/21/2005, 3:53 pm Post subject: Elusive gator hides out in Arizona desert for 19 years |
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This is the kind of story I'd expect to see back home in South Carolina. It wasn't unusual to hear rumors about gators in lakes there.
| Salt Lake Tribune wrote: |
Elusive gator hides out in Arizona desert for 19 years
By Jim Davis
The Salt Lake Tribune
Federal land managers are attempting to capture an elusive, longtime resident of northwestern Arizona.
The homesteader is not a prospector, a polygamist, a cowboy or an anti-government type the more typical recluses of the high-desert region known as the Arizona Strip.
It is an alligator, a non-native creature that authorities believe has occupied a remote warm springs for about 19 years.
"You have a probably 9-foot alligator in a place where you certainly wouldn't expect to find an alligator," said David Boyd, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The reptilian lives at Pakoon Springs, which is part of a 240-acre parcel that was purchased three years ago by the BLM. It is part of what President Clinton designated the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument.
Bob Price of the Arizona Game and Fish Department said the previous owner of the land, Chuck Simmons, apparently released a foot-long alligator into one of his ponds some 19 years ago.
"Then it got big," Price said.
Simmons required as a condition of the sale that the agency not harm the alligator.
Once the BLM acquired the property, it had no choice but to remove the creature because it is illegal to own an alligator in Arizona without a special permit. Alligators' native habitat is tropical rivers and swamps.
Boyd said BLM officers began looking for the alligator almost as soon as the sale was completed but had no luck.
"It just wasn't there," he said. "There weren't any sightings, tracks, drag marks. There had been no sightings at all. People have even gone out at night and tried to spotlight this thing. And nothing."
But monument employee Kathleen Harcksen spotted the alligator about five months ago.
"She was walking around and heard a huge splash," Boyd said. "It kind of scared her."
After taking photographs (which helped officials estimate the animal's size), the BLM called the Phoenix Herpetological Society to attempt to capture the alligator.
A six-person team, headed by society president Russ Johnson, has placed snares and bait around the pond, and has been making nightly forays into the area in hopes of catching the gator.
Officials marvel that the animal has survived because nobody had fed it for at least three years.
"You wouldn't think there was a lot of food out there for it," Boyd said, theorizing that the alligator was subsisting on a diet of bullfrogs and rabbits.
While its food supply may have been scarce, Boyd said the alligator has not suffered too much at Pakoon Springs, where the water temperature is a comfy 80 degrees year-round.
But soon the alligator will have a new home, most likely in Scottsdale, Ariz., where Johnson and David Marchand operate a sanctuary for a wide range of reptiles, including several dozen alligators.
Once alligator free, Pakoon Springs, part of a working cattle ranch for nearly a century, will become a BLM ecological restoration project.
"We're going to try to restore it to a more natural space," Boyd said.
The site will remain closed until the alligator is captured. |
http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203%257E21481%257E2928458,00.html
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CatValet
Got Gear?
Joined: 04 Jan 2003
Posts: 735
Location: Scottsdale
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| Posted: 6/21/2005, 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Don't be showin' this to yer wife or poor 'Lijah will never git to go hikin' ! |
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kurthzone
Thread Killer
Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 1097
Location: Peoria, Arizona
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| Posted: 6/21/2005, 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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Anyone remember Jack Adams aligator farm on US 60 in east Mesa?
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Adventurer
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 13
Location: Mesa
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| Posted: 6/21/2005, 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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I remember that someone let them all out. I think it was Henry Brown. It was located around Lindsey road.
I also remember my Arizona History teacher telling me that alligators use to live in swamps around Yuma, but I have not been able to verify that. |
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mike
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Joined: 30 Dec 2002
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| Posted: 6/22/2005, 9:17 am Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
I also remember my Arizona History teacher telling me that alligators use to live in swamps around Yuma, but I have not been able to verify that.
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I think it would more likely have been crocodiles. The American Crocodile is found along the west coast of Mexico. It's range has diminished, so it's possible it may have extended further north to the lower Colorado at one time.
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mike
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Joined: 30 Dec 2002
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| Posted: 6/22/2005, 1:41 pm Post subject: Scottsdale man tries trap, but gator doesn't swallow bait |
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| azcentral.com wrote: |
Scottsdale man tries trap, but gator doesn't swallow bait
Doug Haller
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 22, 2005 11:15 AM
Scottsdale's Russ Johnson drove to the northern edge of the Grand Canyon last week to locate and capture a 10-foot alligator.
Well, Johnson's back, but no gator.
It's not that Johnson couldn't find the reptile, which has hung out for the past 19 years at Pakoon Springs, a 240-acre parcel along the Arizona Strip. It's just that Johnson might have the wrong bait.
"We're right at the end of their breeding season, and during this time, eating is the last thing on their minds," said Johnson, president of the Phoenix Herpetological Society.
So for the past six days, the alligator has chilled in a shallow pond, ignoring the traps laced with chicken and rabbit. Johnson plans to make a return trip in a few weeks, when he expects the gator to be focused on his hunger and not his libido.
"We thought there was a chance his cycle might be different, but we had no way to tell until we got up there," said Johnson, who runs a reptile shelter in North Scottsdale. |
http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/0622B1-talker-ON.html
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GTG
Was lost but now am found
Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 2387
Location: Peoria, Arizona, originally from Rocket City, USA
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| Posted: 6/22/2005, 2:50 pm Post subject: gator bait and such |
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Reminds me of an old Jerry Reid song 
At the end of mating season nothin' brings the gators around faster than the aroma of fresh goat. 
I bet I could get that gator to crawl right in the truck with me and drive him wherever I wanted to.
I'd bring him home and train him a bit and y'all would be green with gator envy when I got him to haul my stuff on the WFW III.
GTG
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mike
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Joined: 30 Dec 2002
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| Posted: 6/22/2005, 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| GTG wrote: |
I'd bring him home and train him a bit and y'all would be green with gator envy when I got him to haul my stuff on the WFW III.
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Son, you ain't right.... 
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paintninaz
Joined: 06 Jan 2003
Posts: 3515
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| Posted: 6/22/2005, 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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GTG, did you have some okra for lunch??? 
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“Friends make the bad times good — and the good times unforgettable.” |
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JW
I'll make rain with my spaceman powers!
Joined: 20 Sep 2003
Posts: 1296
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| Posted: 6/22/2005, 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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Cool, if it's a 'bama gator!
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Since my house burned down, I now own a better view of the rising moon. - Masahide. |
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mike
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Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 3134
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| Posted: 6/27/2005, 8:47 am Post subject: Carolina boys catch gator |
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Maybe they should fly these guys out to Arizona...
| The Carolina Channel wrote: |
Man Catches Alligator In Lake Keowee
Seneca, SC - Josh Tucker wasn't expecting to catch more than a fish or two at Lake Keowee over the weekend.
"It was bowing this thing. This rod was just completely bent like this, you know," he said.
"I got right down to the water's edge, tried to net him by the head, but he kept going out," friend Jason Elwell said.
"He" was a 4-foot-long American alligator, and he wasn't glad to see the two men.
"Oh, he was chomping at us. He was snapping, he was trying to get us," Tucker said. "He was squirming, he was not happy."
The men got the gator on shore, but not before it took a chunk out of their net. Tucker brought it home and kept it in a dog cage on his porch until a Department of Natural Resources officer came to take it off his hands.
"I liked it a lot better than catching catfish and bass," Tucker said.
Tucker admitted that what he knew about catching and restraining the alligator pretty much came from watching "The Croc Hunter" on TV.
"Yeah, I saw the show and it was kinda play-by-play," he said.
DNR officials said the alligator is not common to the Upstate, and was probably placed in the lake by someone. |
http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/news/4654644/detail.html
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mike
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Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 3134
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| Posted: 7/15/2005, 9:47 am Post subject: Elusive Arizona alligator is caught |
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| azcentral.com wrote: |
Elusive Arizona alligator is caught
Associated Press
Jul. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
Clem the alligator is in custody.
For nearly 20 years, the 9-foot gator lived in an isolated area of northwestern Arizona where someone released him.
He had almost no human intrusion near Pakoon Springs until the land became part of a national monument created by President Clinton.
Officials said Clem evaded capture for weeks, but he was caught in a snare trap on Tuesday night. He'll be moved to a sanctuary in Scottsdale. |
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0714B1-newsupdate14.html
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Davis2001R6
Joined: 12 Dec 2003
Posts: 5591
Location: Italy
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| Posted: 7/15/2005, 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Dang, I was routing for the gator! |
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mike
What box?
Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 3134
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| Posted: 7/15/2005, 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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Me, too.
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GTG
Was lost but now am found
Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 2387
Location: Peoria, Arizona, originally from Rocket City, USA
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| Posted: 7/15/2005, 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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I'll bet you he's one of a few out there....
GTG
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