Alligator at Pinecliff Sanctuary: spotted Tuesday, nabbed Wednesday

‘Gator Blotter: Tuesday, August 12
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August 15, 2008
by Christine Yeres

Josh Dreisacker, wildlife removal specialist, thought it was a joke at first. “The police called us Tuesday afternoon and said, ‘We have a two-foot alligator on the loose in Chappaqua. Can you help us?’ Last time we heard a call like that it turned out to be a large iguana,” recalled Dreisacker. But this time it was the genuine article. New Castle Police Officer Ray Bourbeau had the creature under observation at Pinecliff Sanctuary at the end of Pinecliff Road, located less than half a mile up Quaker Road from the Rte.120 bridge.

At first, Officer Bourbeau let no one pass onto the boardwalk, but once ten-year-old twins Molly and Hannah Brock told him that their two and a half year old neighbor was the first to see it, “he let us down to see it. We don’t know who reported it, but it must have been someone who was taking a trip around the pond,” said Molly.

The sanctuary is a small gem not far from the center of Chappaqua (see map, below), managed and maintained by the Saw Mill River Audubon Society. “About ten years ago,” says New Castle environmental coordinator Steve Coleman, “they put in about a quarter mile of boardwalks through the place and it’s even handicapped accessible. It’s a beautiful little wetland and they’ve done a terrific job of maintaining and protecting it.”

When Dreisacker and his father, Jim Dreisacker, arrived, they found Bourbeau and Pinecliff neighbors young and old watching the two-and-a-half-foot alligator swim around the bright green algae-covered surface of the pond. In the water very near the lookout dock where people were gathered sat a two foot long rock sporting a single stand of purple loosestrife and a small patch of crabgrass; one neighbor reported having seen the alligator sunning on it within the past two weeks. Now that a caller had drawn police attention to it, people compared notes and realized that they’d seen the alligator, too, over the last two weeks.

“On Tuesday,” said Hannah Brock, “I saw its eye peering out of the water.” Her sister Molly confirmed, “Not even its head was showing, just its eye. I wouldn’t have known it was an alligator if the police hadn’t pointed it out to me. I wasn’t scared, I thought it was kind of cool, but when the police told my babysitter that the alligator had been right next to the boardwalk, she almost ran away. She’d much rather stay inside. But I know that not all alligators are dangerous. That one was definitely not big enough to eat anyone.”

Guessing its origins, most likely abandoned by humans

The Dreisacker team believed that the alligator’s willingness to swim closer and closer to the dock as they threw in some random objects might mean that it was accustomed to people as food givers. They guessed that the alligator had been a pet, released into the sanctuary by its owner. A Pinecliff resident of 39 years, Jo Lunetta, was appalled to hear it. “I am so upset at whoever released it, because they really released it to die. Alligators are not my favorite cuddly animals,” she admitted, “but this alligator was probably raised by a family that took responsibility to care for it and then threw it away.” The alligator would not have been able to survive our winter.

Catching it

A woman offered to run fetch some real food—leftover chicken from the night before—and Josh and Jim Dreisacker used it to set up a Have-a-Heart trap. Commonly used on land animals such as squirrels and skunks, the trap is designed to allow the animal in, which springs a trigger that then shuts to bar its exit.

Apparently, the trap is amphibious. With the leftover chicken as inducement to the gator, the Dreisackers set up the trap half on the rock, half in the water. They decided to leave the trap and revisit it later that night. “I returned at midnight,” said Josh, “because alligators are nocturnal. I had a flashlight. There were water trails in the algae, but they might have been made by muskrats, fish, any number of animals. Nothing in the trap, and no alligator.”

The next morning, Wednesday, he returned. “The chicken was still there, and some raccoon prints, but no alligator. But when we came back in the afternoon around 5:00 p.m. he was right there, in the water with his head popped up. Stock-still, he looked like any other log or rock covered in that green stuff. Just the eye was recognizable.”

“So we put a fish on a fishing line and as soon as it dropped into the water he came closer. We had a bucket of shiners [small fish] from a bait and tackle place. We started with one on the hook, three inches long and cast in. He went right for it and removed it from the hook without getting snagged. We thought we were out of luck for the day. But he came for more. He took it again. Then next time we put two shiners on the hook. One fell off, he got the other. We figured the hook was too large for his mouth. We put a smaller hook on the line. With one shiner left, we threw it in on the smaller hook. He grabbed it and tangled himself up in the line—the hook was on his body rather than in his throat, which was much better for him.”

“We pulled him in. My dad grabbed him first. He was very powerful and almost wriggled out of my dad’s grip. I play acoustic guitar – I wasn’t going to get my fingers near him. But once my dad grabbed him by the tail I grabbed him by the neck. We got him into the trap, but he turned around and came out right away. Quickly my dad put his foot on him and while he was pinned, I brought the cage mouth around and held it open. My dad steered him in and I shut the door of the trap behind him.”

Off to a better place to live

The men loaded their cargo into the back of their Westchester Wildlife Control van. “I saw the alligator in the back of the truck before they drove away,” said Hannah Brock. “They decided to cover the cage with a blanket because it got really aggravated and was whaling around and pacing.  It was getting really overwhelmed. The cover was supposed to help it calm down.”

“They said they were going to try to find wildlife place or a zoo to put it in where it will be taken care of the right way. They’re pretty sure that it used to be somebody’s pet. There wasn’t really any other way for it to get here. The police thought so and so did the wildlife people.” 

Thinking back over events, Hannah Brock reasoned, “There was a suspicion that the alligator had been eating some of the frogs, because people remembered that the sounds of the peepers and the wood frogs, tree frogs and bull frogs had grown quieter during part of the summer. But I hear them now, so maybe they were just being quiet.”

As of this printing, Jim and Josh Dreisacker are still casting around for a permanent home for the alligator. They’re keeping it wet and feeding it shiners.

Editor’s Note: Josh Dreisacker lives in New Castle.  He works with his dad’s company, “Westchester Wildlife Control,” and is also a musician and performance artist, under the name Icon James.   Beginning in September, he will play acoustic guitar Monday nights at Lucy’s, 446 Bedford Road, in Pleasantville, across from the police station. Some of Dreisacker’s artwork – large silk screens of Bill Clinton – has been displayed for long stretches at Starbucks in downtown Chappaqua.

New Castle Police Officer Ray Bourbeau

Audubon’s map of the sanctuary

Favorite sunning spot for the ‘gator

The sign on Quaker Road