You are here: Home : Newsroom : Alligator Relocation
WRANGLED 'GATOR WILL LEAVE NC ZOO
BY: Tom GillespieJun. 26, 2008
ASHEBORO, N.C. - An alligator found by a Randolph Co. Animal Control officer near Asheboro and brought to the North Carolina Zoo June 16 will soon have a new home in Florida.
The alligator, thought to be about 4-5 years old because of its size, was found crossing U.S. Hwy. 64 about a mile east of Asheboro and later picked up by Animal Control and local sheriff’s deputies.
The zoo is unable to keep the five-foot reptile due to lack of space to adequately house it. In about two weeks, it will be sent to the "Everglades Outpost," an animal rehabilitation center near Miami.
According to Larry Fesmire, a supervisor with Animal Control, the alligator was spotted by a motorist, who contacted the Randolph Co. Sheriff’s Dept., who, in turn, contacted Fesmire. Fesmire and the deputies managed to catch the alligator, he said.
"Someone likely brought it from Florida as a pet when it was ten or twelve inches long," Fesmire said. "When it got too big to take care of, they probably just let it go."
It is illegal to keep alligators in North Carolina without the proper permits from the N.C. Wildlife Commission and the N.C. Dept. of Agriculture.
"Besides being illegal in North Carolina, they don’t make very good pets," said N.C. Zoo Curator of Reptiles John Groves.
This wasn’t Fesmire’s first odd-animal wrangling, he said. Others here have included emus and pot-belly pigs and a 15-foot boa constrictor from a lady’s basement in Illinois, where he worked before coming to Randolph Co.
The zoo is an agency of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, William G. Ross Jr., Secretary; Michael F. Easley, Governor.