State environmental offiicals say an 11-foot alligator was seized from an upstate New York home where it was being kept illegally.

An ailing alligator was seized from an upstate New York home where it was being kept illegally, state officials said.

Environmental conservation police officers seized the 750-pound (340-kilogram), 11-foot-long (3.4-meter-long) alligator on Wednesday from a home in Hamburg, south of Buffalo.

The home’s owner built an addition and installed an in-ground swimming pool for the 30-year-old alligator and allowed people, including children, to get into the water with the reptile, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The alligator has “blindness in both eyes” and spinal complications, among other health issues. The reptile was sent to a licensed caretaker until a place is found where it can receive permanent care, according to a release from the agency.

  • SeaJ
    2•9 months ago

    Less of a hassle in most parts of the world, sure. But if you live near a swamp/bayou it’s not much of a hassle. It might actually be less since chickens have a habit of being eaten by alligators. Not a chicken but when I was a wee lad living on the bayou, a gator somehow got our gate open and went to town on a duck that landed in our yard. That was a bloody, feathery mess.