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Second renegade alligator surfaces in Los Angeles

Posted on: Thursday, 8 September 2005, 17:49 CDT

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles officials, still unable to catch an alligator that stunned them by surfacing in a city lake last month, now face a doubly vexing situation -- a second renegade gator.

The second reptile was seen basking in a drainage canal this week by residents in the gritty neighborhood of Harbor City, not far from where wranglers have spent weeks chasing the first alligator, "Reggie," around murky Lake Machado.

City parks officials were so baffled by the sighting that they first concluded it was Reggie, but residents of a nearby trailer park say the second reptile is younger and smaller.

"I thought it was cool. I want him to stay. I want him to be my friend," said 19-year-old Haley Reagan, whose father Greg was first to spot the toothy creature. "My friend wanted me to go out the other day and I said 'No, I'm out here with the alligator.' It's kind of odd."

Animal control officers and professional alligator wranglers spent much of Wednesday trying unsuccessfully to catch the slippery, 3-foot (1 meter) reptile with a noose, only to have him duck repeatedly under the water and out of sight.

"It was almost like he was taunting the guy trying to catch him," Reagan said. "I think he thought they were playing because he would put the net on his nose and then go under.

"He's really calm," she said. "Everyone's making a big scare out of it but he's really friendly, he's just a baby. They approach him like he's harmful but he's not at all."

In August, police arrested two men for releasing Reggie into Lake Machado, saying he was purchased as a pet and then abandoned when he grew too large, possibly as long as 10 feet . Alligators are native to the Southeastern United States and are not found in the wild in California.

Meanwhile Reggie has attained folk-hero status as he outwits police, firefighters, park rangers, animal control officers, state fish and game workers, volunteer herpetologists and two teams of gator wranglers to remain on the lam.

Crowds routinely gather around the lake to wait for Reggie to surface out of the brackish waters. Some have taken to selling T-shirts bearing the alligator's image and slogan: "Harbor City You Will Never Catch Me."

Source: REUTERS

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