Gators up north? Probably dumped pets

CHICAGO - Two gators in the Chicago River. One strolling down a Massachusetts street. Another in bustling New York City. And that's just in the past few weeks.

From North Dakota to Indiana, alligators are showing up far from their traditional southern habitats - including a 3-footer captured yesterday in the Chicago River.

But experts say it's not the latest sign of global warming. Instead the creatures almost certainly were pets that escaped or were dumped by their owners.

"People buy them as pets and then they get too big and at some point they decide they just can't deal with it," said Kent Vliet, an alligator expert from the University of Florida who tracks media reports about the reptiles.

In the past three years, he said, there have been at least 100 instances of alligators showing up in more than 15 states where they're not native. North Carolina is the farthest north they are found naturally, Vliet said.

A 3-foot-long, collar-wearing alligator was found Sunday on a street in Brockton, Mass. Sunday, a 2-foot-long gator was spotted under a car in Queens. In fact, since spring, gators have been found in Fargo, N.D., eastern Missouri, upstate New York, rural Indiana, Ohio and a Detroit suburb.

After being spotted by boaters on Sunday, Chicago's rogue gator drew scores of gawkers to the banks of the river. It peered from the water at the people staring back through binoculars, and swam away when a duck got too close.

"It's not scary," 8-year-old Caleb Berry said. "It was a baby."

Vliet said such small alligators don't pose much of a threat to humans, though they probably would bite if handled. The greater risk is to the reptiles, which probably wouldn't survive in northern climates, experts said.

Alligators can be kept as pets in some states, though some municipalities - like New York City - ban them outright.