July 11, 2008

(Pet Pulse Photo Illustration by Mike Lloyd)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- It is already illegal to possess or import alligators in the state, and now the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency says it is euthanizing gators that are seized.

The alligators are being euthanized because of a lack of housing for them.

“We’re facing the problem of finding legally sufficient facilities to hold the animals,” agency spokesman Walter Cook told Tennessean.com. “We usually try and place them with a zoo. That way we know they won’t be resold and won’t resurface.

“But alligators can live for 30 or 40 years. With the number of animals produced for sale, their receptacles fill up pretty quickly because they’re holding animals from years past.”

Tennessee has euthanized three gators since last year when the practice began, Cook says.

David Critchlow, owner of Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary in Athens, Michigan, told Pet Pulse that the root of the problem is that people turn alligators into pets, which he strongly advised against.

Tennessee’s plan to euthanize alligators makes sense, Critchlow said.

“I know it’s bothersome, but it’s probably an expected step to take, just because there are so many,” he said. “And we’re talking about private, collected alligators too. And I’d just as soon that people did not have this as a ‘pet.’

“So I can probably side with the state on this one. I think that’s probably a good step to take. Because there would be an inherent expense for the state to go ahead and step in if they’re going to confiscate the animal, to try to transport it to a local facility that would handle them. And there’s just not a lot of facilities like mine that would do that kind of thing.”

Carmen Critchlow, David’s wife, says returning alligators to the wild simply is not a viable option.

“Once they’re getting used to people, they get dangerous,” she said. “Because they can’t tell the difference between a little kid, a dog or food.

“They would be dangerous because if people come close to them they associate food with people, and they go towards people. Our alligators, they know us. And when they hear our voices, or when they hear people, they come close because they know that they’re going to get food.”

There are several thousand alligators in captivity in Michigan, David Critchlow estimated. It is legal to have gators as pets there, most of which are bought in pet stores.

“It’s an exciting animal for people to have because it’s about the closest thing to getting a dinosaur that you can have,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s legal in the state or not, they do end up there anyway.”

Some of Michigan’s municipalities, like Detroit, ban alligators.

“But that doesn’t mean that there’s not a bunch there,” David Critchlow said. “We estimate there’s probably 500 to 1,000 alligators just in the city of Detroit.”

Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary currently houses between 40 and 50 alligators, half from private individuals, the other half courtesy of animal control and law enforcement.

Those who buy gators as pets, David Critchlow says, are usually unprepared to properly tend to them.

“Then three or four years later they’re too big, or they’re changing marital status, or the family has a new baby, or whatever circumstances pop in,” he said. “And then they’re looking for a place to get rid of the animal.

“When we’re contacted on the animal it’s probably in the three-foot range,” he added, which Critchlow said is usually at 5 years old. The reptiles, he says, grow faster in the wild.

“A lot of these animals that are in captivity now, they’re not feed properly, they’re not housed properly, and so they grow a little bit on the slow side,” David Critchlow said. “In fact, we grow ours purposely on the slow side, just because they need good warmth and sun to shine to be able to digest properly.

“And they can go for long periods of time without food. And so we’re more concerned with a healthy animal than we are just feeding him for the sake of feeding him.”

One seven-foot gator at the sanctuary recently was not fed for nine months, David Critchlow said.

“He was obese, he could not walk, he could not close his mouth, his eyes were swollen,” he said. “He was just fed chunks of meat twice a week continuously. And so he just laid there and got bigger.

“And so we exercised him a lot and got him up to a healthy weight.”

People often keep pet alligators in fish tanks and just watch them, too apprehensive or afraid to come in contact with them, David Critchlow said.

“He’s going to become real aggressive at that point if he’s not had any hands-on work,” he said.

At the sanctuary, alligators are exercised by making them walk and swim. Their gators receive lots of medical and personality testing when they arrive.

Angelina Critchlow, David and Carmen’s daughter, handles training, and eventually teaches the reptiles eight to ten words once they are at least four feet long.

Gators are taught their name and to respond to that name, with food used as a reward.

“I don’t do circus tricks, I don’t do, ‘Watch me put my head in his mouth,’ that kind of thing,” David Critchlow said. “But we train them to respond to us so that that helps us manage them.

“They hear better than a dog. A dog will hear sounds, an alligator will hear specific words. So he can decipher between the word, “Ned” and “Ted. He’s that good.

“So we’ll walk into an exhibit, we’ll call one animal by name and he’ll come right up to us.”

David Critchlow reiterated that an overabundance of homeless gators, in Tennessee and elsewhere, is not the state’s problem, but one caused by residents.

“I don’t know how more emphatically I can say, ‘Please don’t get this animal,’” he said. “He has special needs, he can become aggressive, he’s going to get large. And you’re only going to keep him for two or three years, and then you’re going to look for a way to get rid of him.

“You could risk injury if he gets too big. It’s not a good pet to have.”

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