New home found for Buffalo Grove alligator

What do you do with an active, 3-foot-long, 20-pound alligator that's "just a baby" and hisses at anyone who looks at him?

That was the dilemma for Arlington Heights-based ABC Humane Wildlife Rescue and Relocation, who late Wednesday managed to find a temporary home for the North American alligator captured on a residential sidewalk in Buffalo Grove Tuesday night.

An "experienced herpetologist" in Illinois who declined to be identified has offered to take the alligator, whom police nicknamed "Chewy," ABC Wildlife Control Specialist Graham Olson said.

Olson didn't know what type of permits this herpetologist had to legally house the alligator, which is illegal to own in Illinois, but said the man was a legitimate handler with experience caring for alligators.

"(Chewy) will be fine. He'll live a nice long life, but in a proper environment," Olson said. "He'd need an artificial ecosystem to stay alive here ... so it's likely he won't stay in Illinois."

Owning an alligator is a class C misdemeanor crime under the Illinois Dangerous Animals Act, said Buffalo Grove Police Sgt. Mike Szos.

For that reason, police are now looking for the alligator's owner.

"We've gotten a lot of tips. The residents are being very cooperative," said Sgt. Mike Millett. "The real crime is what happened to this reptile. This poor beast has to suffer because of some selfish resident."

Police believe the alligator was probably a pet who had become too big, dangerous or expensive to keep indoors, so he was turned loose. The alligator didn't pose any serious threat to humans, but Olson said he has a strong bite that "could take a finger off, easily."

On Tuesday night, two men were walking their dogs on the 600 block of Pinehurst Lane when they saw the alligator on the sidewalk in front of them.

It was right after the storm came through, and the police department's phones were jammed with reports of trees down on dozens of streets. In the midst of it all, Millett said, someone calls 911 and says there's an alligator on the sidewalk.

"It was crazy around here. Just crazy. And then we get that call," he said. "But sure enough, the officers called and said, 'Sarge, we got a real gator out here.'"

Officer Tony Goldstein was one of four officers who helped capture the alligator using a plastic garbage can and a metal pole. The other officers involved were Keith Bourbonnais, Tom Derken and Matt Mills. One of the neighbors held the flashlight as police got Chewy into the garbage can.

"It was creepy," Goldstein said, "because at night, (the alligator's) eyes just glowed like two little lights."

Chewy spent Tuesday night inside the police department's darkened bonding room, confined to the garbage can he was captured in, and was not fed anything, Szos said.

"He hissed if you walked by his garbage can. He didn't like it if you looked at him, but otherwise he was fine," Szos said.

ABC Humane Wildlife Rescue and Relocation picked him up Wednesday morning and began searching for somewhere to place him.

While alligator sightings are rare in the Chicago area, this isn't the first time they've popped up. Two alligators were recently fished out of the Chicago River, and in recent years, there have been gators in the Fox River and a Naperville golf course lake.

No one can say for sure where these alligators are coming from, or if there's any type of alligator population boom in the area. But Chicago Herpetological Society President John Archer says people often buy the alligators - illegally - when they're cute, little 8-inch reptiles that can be contained in an aquarium. Then they'll nearly triple in size within the first year.

"When they get big, they bite. They hurt," said Archer, a Medinah resident. "We love these animals, but they make terrible pets."

Domesticated alligators, just like any domesticated animal, can't survive out in the wild, and alligators could never endure the winter here. To care for them properly would require a huge financial investment, Archer said.

That doesn't stop people from illegally buying them and viewing them as "toys," Archer said.

Reptiles are popular pets - the North American Reptile Breeders Conference and Trade Show will be held Oct. 9-10 in Tinley Park - but they can be difficult and expensive animals to care for. As the animals grow, owners often find them too hard to manage and then have nowhere to turn, Archer said.

"They can't just call us and assume we can take care of it. Or you can't just call Brookfield Zoo and say, 'Will you take my 22-foot python?'" he said. "You don't want an alligator as a pet, and you don't want a python as a pet."

Turkeys and gators and tigers, oh my!Wild animals are no strangers to the suburbs. Coyotes, fox and bats grab most of the headlines, but a partial list of more exotic sightings includes:bull; A wild turkey in Napervillebull; A cougar (repeatedly spotted but never found) in Wheaton, West Chicago and across Lake Countybull; A pet tiger in East Dundeebull; An alligator in the Fox River in Elgin and another on a golf course in Napervillebull; Piranhas in Bangs Lake in Waucondabull; Iguanas, a python and venomous snakes in Lake Countybull; A baby bobcat in Kane Countybull; A wallaby in DuPage Countybull; A lion and tiger in LibertyvilleSource: Daily Herald archivesFalse490378Graham Olson, a animal control specialist with A-B-C Humane Wildlife Control in Arlington Heights, brought the North American Alligator caught back to the Buffalo Grove Police Station parking lot to show the press on Tuesday,George LeClaire | Staff PhotographerFalse <div class="infoBox"><h1>More Coverage</h1><div class="infoBoxContent"><div class="infoArea"><h2>Stories</h2><ul class="links"><li><a href="/story/?id=409849">Buffalo Grove police capture 3-foot alligator <span class="date">[09/21/10]</span></a></li></ul>'<h2>Video</h2><!-- Start of Brightcove Player --><div style="display:none"></div><!--By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and Cfound at http://corp.brightcove.com/legal/terms_publisher.cfm.--><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script><object id="myExperience615513376001" class="BrightcoveExperience"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="width" value="300" /><param name="height" value="255" /><param name="playerID" value="18011347001" /><param name="publisherID" value="1659832549"/><param name="isVid" value="true" /><param name="@videoPlayer" value="615513376001" /></object><!-- End of Brightcove Player --></ul></div></div></div>