Reporter Robert Medley writes of state game wardens, who are investigating a man’s report of seeing an alligator in an Oklahoma City pond, a month after a similar animal was seen nearby.
Jason Hall, 33, said he was walking his dog about 10 p.m. Monday at Dolese Youth Park, just northwest of N Meridian Avenue and NW 50, when he saw something slithering on the surface of the pond. At first he thought it was a beaver, he said, but when he got a closer look at the snout he saw it appeared to be an alligator.
“That was no beaver,” he said.
Hall said he watched the 4-foot animal swim around and swoosh its tail back and forth as it circled toward him and his dog. He said he watched the creature swimming around for about an hour.
The animal came within 10 feet of him, he said, adding there is cause for concern. “There are ducks and geese and people who walk their dogs out here,” Hall said.
On Oct. 19, a tenant at Willow Cliff Lakeshore Apartments, 5304 Willow Cliff Road, reported seeing what was described as a 2-foot alligator in the apartment complex pond. The pond is about a quarter mile from Dolese Youth Park Pond.
Micah Holmes, spokesman for the state Department of Wildlife Conservation, said game wardens searched the apartment complex pond with no luck. Holmes said wardens now plan to search at Dolese Youth Park.
Holmes said beavers make motions with their tails as described by Hall.
Officials said someone may have released a pet. Alligators are illegal to own as pets in the state, Holmes said.
An alligator in central Oklahoma would not be likely to survive the winter, Holmes said.
“This is not alligator weather,” he said.
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