Sunday, June 7, 2009

Alligator Loose In Morgan County!

Picture is from The National Geographic.

The big news about this is it's Morgan County Missouri, not Morgan County Alabama. Link here and amusing comments to boot! Seems the missing alligator can survive, he/she just can't breed in the unlikely case he/she finds another alligator. The missing gator wasn't 3 miles from a very large freshwater lake, The Lake Of The Ozarks, I think somewhere I read there's more shoreline on it than California has on the Pacific but that's counting all the coves and creeks up quite a ways, maybe it's Lake of The Ozarks and Truman Lake combined which would be quite plausible.

Evidently it was a pet and was stolen or let loose or something. A local festival was going on not 2 miles from where the Alligator was, the festival is called the Pigeon Swap and is actually in a field that's on top of a huge cave. I kid you not. This is also like 2 miles from my daughters house. No alligator sightings were reported @ the Pigeon Swap and that's not a line you'll hear every day. (the pigeon swap is a giant flea market/street fair type atmosphere, it's great if you like to walk and buy animals or anything handmade or anything actually).

The reason I was reminded of said alligator is a relative emailed me and suggested we needed to put the dogs in the house, she had heard of the alligator from the authorities in the next county? I actually hadn't thought of it. Said Alligator is 10 miles away as the crow flies, granted it's a sparsely populated 10 miles but I would think he would head south to the lakes. When she emailed me I had just come back from fishing @ the little pond with my grandsons and left them down there (grandsons finished mowing the "other" part of the lawn today and weedeated! Thanks Zach and Marcus! So grandma went fishing with them). It's not far from the house but it did give me the willies the authorities thought it could come this far? I guess living in Mississippi not far from the coast with all the displaced alligators and baby ones bobbing up investigating my fishing line made me more blase about alligators than the average Missourian? I did see something in the pond but I'm pretty sure it was a turtle.

I told my husband when he called about the alligator on the loose, I'd forgot to tell him before. Husband being in down South where there really are alligators thought I was full of bull hockey till I explained the story, I had to repeat the line twice that there was an alligator on the loose up here, he thought the phone was messing up. I just hope they find the gator and he doesn't cause too much of a stir. Or appear on my doorstep anytime.

Postscript: Go to this link for another look @ the missing gator and also a gator that was actually caught in a park lake in Sherman TX, granted TX is south but Sherman is north of Dallas. I believe there is one that lives in DeQueen AR also. Do not ask me how I know this. One was sighted in Indiana also, you start looking for gators where they shouldn't be and egads they are everywhere!

20 comments:

Rae said...

That is too scary. I would be worried every time I went outdoors. Too bad for the alligator though. It is obviously a case of animal cruelty. Why do people try to own exotic pets. It is plain stupid.

TC said...

I guess it's getting scarier because they haven't found it and it's going to be scared and hungry. Evidently it was part of a traveling show or something. I probably will go outside with the dogs though till I hear they've caught it or sighted it far far away.

Ziggy Stardust said...

Good Lord, until they find it stay inside!

Anne

Lillian Robinson said...

Whatever you do, don't let it inside!

TC said...

chicamom85 it's OK, they can't run very fast, they were wandering around down in MS after Katrina, they'd get stuck like under roads in culverts and they'd just keep them there till traffic got lighter so people wouldn't panic when they took them out. I really did have a baby one like less than 10 ft away, looking @ me, wondered where mama was, they killed a 14 ft one from that same spot earlier, like years earlier. I was fishing from a dock of a house that was gone due to Katrina, owner gave me permission and told me all this.

SquirrelQueen said...

Above all else I want you and the dogs to be safe but I also hope they catch the poor thing and can put it somewhere where it will be safe as well.
Please keep us updated on this story.
Take care,
Judy

TC said...

MzzLily you don't have to worry on that one, if I see him I would have to call 911 and if he tried to get an animal of mine? I do believe I could shoot an alligator no problems, they are slow you know.

TC said...

Judy I'll let you know, I think they've now decided that whoever took it just let it go? I'm not sure but they think it's wandering around. A bear I would be worried about more I think, an alligator is weird just plain weird, armadillos coming in this far north we are getting used to, alligators NO!

Anonymous said...

We forget over here in the countryside that the only vicious creatures we tend to see are foxes! There are many other species of wildlife of course which could leave a nasty bite but I wouldn't like to see an alligator!!

CJ xx

TC said...

Yes Crystal Jigsaw we have many vicious creatures here, the worst is probably the coyote here but there are definitely black bear not far from here but not in any great numbers, they wander in from Arkansas. A panther was hit by a truck close by and they did determine it was a wild one, not an escaped pet. I saw one when I was 18 but tried to talk myself out of it! LOL

SquirrelQueen said...

Hi TC,
I made some lemonade, come to my Lemonade Stand and pick up the award I have for you.
Judy

TC said...

Thank you so much Judy aka SquirrelQueen, will hop right over.
Nothing more on the alligator, I'm going to mow, alligator was actually a pet so someone could have him or have sold him?

Jase said...

When I was a kid, I remember hearing about all these people flushing aligators down the loo and how they were growing up in the sewers. It's funny how, as a kid, you think the world could be connected by sewerage pipes, because I had such a fear that they would travel to NZ and bite my bottom when they came up through my loo.

Al said...

That's really scary TC, you be careful and also the dogs.

TC said...

Thanks for stopping by Jase, BTW I just found your blog through the lemonade award and loved it.
Kids aren't the only ones who think things like alligators biting them on the toilet. We had small snakes coming up the drain from the lagoon, they came out the first outlet, the shower in the basement which had a direct connection to the drain and was just in concrete. My brother tried to tell me they would come upstairs through the drains, I poured clorox and hot water through all drains immediately.

TC said...

Al thanks, I am watching everything a little closer but the alligator may be in a different state by now. We have a terrier who barks at everything and anything so hopefully she would see it first. My daughter is in more danger, I told her to keep the bulldogs in or watch them, and her children of course!

SquirrelQueen said...

TC,
Wow, reptiles everywhere. I just read your comment to Jase.
So the alligator has moved on, or they just don't know?
Judy

TC said...

Judy the snakes were a while back, we have cats now, when I see snakes they are usually no longer among the living. Which is a good thing but evidently the cats think toads can live, we have lots of big toads, I like toads OK?
They have no further information on the gator, the owners say it was stolen so hopefully it's in someone else's bathtub, it lived in a bathtub? Not sure how happy it was there but it's what it was used to.
I do have a funny story, last night I was weedeating and we have old bird of paradise tree roots that stick up across the driveway, I'd forgotten how big and gray the one was, you get the picture? Just for a second I stepped back and then looked around to make sure nobody saw me startled by the root. LOL

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