While an alligator was caught Monday in the Kiski River after a one-week search, a second alligator is still on the loose in West Mifflin.
Borough police received a video from the Blackberry Street area of the reptile walking along a road and into the weeds on July 26.
No one has reported the alligator since, but that doesn’t surprise West Mifflin police Sgt. Ryan Sabol. He has caught them before in the borough and owns a few reptiles.
“The alligator could just be laying low,” he said. “If he’s hungry, he’s going to walk and look for food in a more suitable habitat.”
Blackberry Street is in a residential area surrounded by woods, Sabol said. The alligator has many places to hide, including the wooded grounds of the nearby U.S. Steel Irvin Works.
U.S. Steel is has been on alert to look for the alligator, said Don German, plant manager. A U.S. Steel employee created a video last week spoofing one of the mill’s bald eagles taking out the gator.
The Monongahela River is about a half-mile away from where the alligator was seen, Sabol said.
“With a situation like this, people get an alligator and can’t care for them when they reach a certain size,” he said. “When you release an alligator in our state, it will perish in the winter.”
When someone buys a young alligator, they should make plans for what they will do with it when it grows larger, he added.
While it’s legal to possess an alligator in Pennsylvania, it is illegal to release it into the wild, said Mike Parker, spokesman for the state Fish and Boat Commission.
The City of Pittsburgh banned the ownership of new alligators and crocodiles in the city a few years ago.
After examining a video taken by a resident of the reptile, Sabol believes the alligator is still a juvenile and is between 2 and 3 feet long.
“Alligators prefer water. If he’s hungry, he’s going to walk around and look for food in a more suitable habitat (than a neighborhood).”
However, if the alligator was a pet, it associates food with people and might go around people looking for food, Sabol added.
“Don’t try to pick it up or handle it, Let us deal with it,” he said.
The alligator isn’t large enough to cause substantial injury but could bite someone or their pet, Sabol said.
Anyone who sees the alligator should call West Mifflin police at 412-461-0600.
Sabol and the borough police officers have caught at least two other alligators in the borough in recent years, including one in 2021.
When it is caught, Sabol plans to take the reptile to someone he knows in the exotic reptile industry who will find an appropriate home, he said.
The alligator caught in the Kiski River on Monday is with Nate’s Reptile Rescue in the South Park Fairgrounds, where it will serve as an educational reptile for school students, vet techs and others.
