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Don’t worry, Detroit — the alligator recently spotted on Belle Isle has been found.
The gator shocked Detroiters when it was seen on the island park late last month. It was captured Wednesday by vigilante animal rescuers Steven Hart and Troy Keteyian, who turned it over to a local reptile education center.
Hart, a dog trainer who runs Spartan K9 Training, tells Metro Times that he decided he would try to help as soon as he heard the news about alligator sighting.
After recently catching a snapping turtle, Hart says he felt emboldened to try to catch the alligator. Plus, as an animal lover, he was worried someone else would harm the creature if he didn’t rescue it.
“People were talking about catching her with fish hooks, and all of that, or shooting her and eating her,” he says. “That’s what woke me up … to be like, I’m going to get this alligator.”
Hart says he started searching on Tuesday evening to no avail.
“I just asked two chicks, I’m like, ‘Hey, have you seen the alligator?’” he says. “I thought they were cute.”
One of the women happened to work on Belle Isle, he says, and told him approximately where the gator was last spotted on the east side of the island.
Hart returned around 5 a.m. on Wednesday, and says he even blew a tire on the drive there. But he was determined to find the gator this time.
“I just went in the water and walked the Blue Heron Lagoon for six hours until I found it,” he says.
As luck would have it, just when he had the alligator cornered, Keteyian appeared and offered to help. The two strangers managed to catch the alligator with nets.
“Teamwork at its finest,” Hart says.
The alligator turned out to be quite small. Based on the yellow stripes on its tail, the creature is likely a juvenile American alligator, whose native habitat is in the much warmer U.S. South.
Hart says the tiny alligator did not try to bite him.
“It’s been very docile,” he says. “It must have been a pet that somebody released. So we’ve been hanging out.”
On Sunday, a paddleboarder spotted the gator relaxing on the shore and provided Metro Times with a video of the encounter.
DNR confirmed the “credible” sighting but warned park guests not to approach the creature.
Hart says the DNR is aware that the alligator has been caught. DNR did not respond to a request for comment from Metro Times.
Hart and Keteyian say they took the gator to Great Lakes Serpentarium, a reptile shelter in Westland.
They were able to determine that the alligator is female, and named her Lady Fáfnir, after a dragon from Norse mythology.
Hart says he thanks his mother for “raising me to be myself,” and also says he is inspired by the late environmentalist and former star of the TV show Crocodile Hunter.
“It’s like a dream of mine from Steve Irwin, you know, growing up, to catch one,” he says. “To see one in Michigan, to see one on the news, I couldn’t pass it up.”
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Lee DeVito
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