When a neighbor decides to camp out on someone else’s porch, it might be a big deal. But it’s definitely a bigger deal when the camping neighbor is an alligator.
Last week, Tony Gularsky, a resident of Kiski Township in western Pennsylvania’s Armstrong County, northeast of Pittsburgh, found out his porch had been occupied Thursday when a friend called him at home, according to WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.
“I got a phone call from a friend of mine who was going to come up and she says, ‘Whatever you do, don’t come out on your porch, there’s a gator out on your porch,’” he said.
“It was definitely crazy. It would’ve been a rude awakening if I would’ve walked out and seen it. I might’ve had a heart attack,” he said.
But he had to crack the door and peek, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
“It was, I’d say, about five to six feet long,” Gularsky told the newspaper, noting that since neighbors down the road had been keeping alligators around, it was not a total shock.
“It was just a matter of time before they (got) loose,” Gularsky said. “I ended up being the unfortunate one — it had to be on my porch.”
Jason Pisarcik, a friend of Gularsky, said the alligator could not have been bypassed.
“It was stretched out in front of his doorway. He couldn’t get out (of his house) if he wanted to,” he said.
Do you believe the state should regulate private ownership of alligators?
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After nine alligators in all were rounded up, they were delivered to the temporary keeping of Nathan Lysaght, director of Nate’s Reptile Rescue in Allegheny County, just outside Pittsburgh, according to the Tribune-Review.
“The goal is to safely relocate the nine alligators to rescues in either South Carolina, Texas or Florida,” Lysaght told the newspaper in a story published Friday, noting that the animals had been living in a backyard swimming pool.
“They’re a little dirty from the pool water they were kept in. There was algae, but they’re all going to get baths today,” Lysaght said.
Although the state does not regulate alligator ownership, Kiski Township police Chief Lee Bartolicius told the Tribune-Review that the alligators were “a threat to public safety, and our officers quickly dispatched to handle the call of an alligator reported at a neighbor’s front door,”
Armstrong County Humane Officer Amber Phillips, who assisted in the process, said the removal was “exhausting and a slow process, but it was completed and no one was injured.”
Alligators “may not be an ideal pet, but they are creatures that matter and deserve the best, if nature can’t be it for them,” he told the newspaper. “I’m relieved they’re in a much better environment and are going to have a life they deserve in full when they’re transported to a sanctuary.”
Dominic Albert Hayward, 26, the owner of the alligators, has been jailed in the Armstrong County jail on charges of violating parole and faces charges from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission of improper transportation or sale of wildlife, according to the Tribune-Review.
It has been a hard time for Pennsylvania alligators. In late September, Joie Henney was not able to watch a Philadelphia Phillies home game because he was in the company of Wall, his emotional support alligator, according to CNN. Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park would not allow the reptile in.
Henney said Wally, who is somewhat of a social media personality, had been invited to meet the players, but they were late and missed their chance.
“So we bought tickets and Wally has been into other baseball games, so we assumed that it was OK,” Henney said. “We never asked or checked with it, but they only allow service animals, such as dogs and horses, into the stadium, not [emotional support] animals.
“Wally is an emotional support animal, not a service animal. People criticized me because they don’t know the story behind everything … but when they came and told us, there was no disagreement, there was no arguing, there was no conflict at all. It was all good,” he said.
