I heard last week that a 4’ gator had been plucked from the Kiskiminetas River, 45 minutes from me northeast of Pittsburgh, PA after being reported by kayakers. And another possibly smaller one had been subsequently spotted there by another kayaker.
Now I see we have made the national news by having ANOTHER one sighted on the Monongahela which is one of the 2 major Mississippi feeders that combine at downtown Pittsburgh to form the Ohio. This gator is frequenting the stretch of the Mon where I most often paddle since it is 15 minutes from my door. I’ve spotted quite a few unique items and critters over the years in the Mon but this certainly adds another level of intrigue to the paddling experience!
Owner of the second Kiski gator has 'fessed up but the pet is still AWOL. Now the township where it escaped is looking at stiffer penalties for releasing pet reptiles. (why we can’t have nice things…)
That is actually great news. When I was a kid 60 odd years ago, the Monongahela was polluted mess thanks to the Steel industry. As I recall it actually caught fire once. That Alligators can survive there is a testament to how much it has improved.
It does not make the news much but the Rio Grande gators have been having on heck of a buffet of late, mostly on illegals that drown in the river trying to cross, but they have also picked off at least on live one that was caught on drone video.
The rivers in SW PA have been cleaned up a great deal since the toxicity of the coal and steel eras here, though there has been some backsliding on that due to illegal dumping of gas well fracking fluid upstream and from conjoined sewer and stormwater runoff. In fact, there have been national bass fishing tournaments in the Monongahela River (where I most often paddle) and I regularly see huge muskies in the river and even a beaver lodge along one bank less than 4 miles from downtown. The sanitation authorities are working towards confining the sewer effluent to dedicated lines that will reach the treatment plants but we do get occasional caution warnings due to high e. coli counts in some of the rivers.
i am headed for a day paddle on the Mon on Wednesday, same area where the latest gator has been spotted. Since its supposed to be rather small, I’m bringing leather gloves, my frying pan sized fishing scoop net and an elastic headband to bind its mouth if we spot and catch it.
Paddling in the Okefenokee swamp, stopped counting 100 alligators in the first hour and most of the time, gators know we are still on the top of the food chain. We kill and eat thousands more of them than they eat of us. People that feed them are the problem.
