Gator tale beats any local yarn

Sure, we’ve had our share. We’ve had the invasion of the giant squid,

the attack of the black jellyfish, the honking sea lions, and a rabid

bat in West Newport.

But in the strange animal stories race, Harbor City wins going

away. You would probably have a hard time finding Harbor City, and

I’ll bet it’s been quite a while since you’ve been there, as in,

never. If you must know, Harbor City is not a city but an area of Los

Angeles just off the Harbor Freeway (110), about halfway between the

San Diego Freeway (405) and San Pedro.

On August 12, some folks relaxing near Machado Lake in Harbor

Regional Park noticed something in the water that looked a lot like

an alligator. After a lot of double takes, pointed fingers and

nervous jokes, everyone agreed the thing gliding around the edge of

the lake was definitely an alligator.

The first people notified of the big thing in the lake were two

park workers, who took one look at the alligator and said this was a

job for the park ranger, who took one look at it and said this was a

job for animal control.

The people at animal control disagreed. Michelle Roache, who

supervises the Harbor Animal Shelter in San Pedro and is also in

charge of understatement, told the Daily Breeze, “Our animal

regulation department does not have this kind of expertise.”

Kristi Navarro, a technician at a shelter, was more candid.

“They called me up like I’m going to catch it,” she said to a

Daily Breeze reporter.

As hours became days, the alligator wasn’t just attracting

attention -- he was attracting a crowd.

Harbor City is very bilingual, and the gator was quickly given two

names -- Harbor Park Harry or Carlito. The media turned out in force.

People started showing up from far and wide, some from other states,

which creates the biggest danger in these types of situations. There

were T-shirt vendors, who were selling “You’ll Never Catch Me”

T-shirts in English and Spanish. With a crowd in the hundreds camped

out in lawn chairs and sleeping bags around the lake, the city put up

a temporary fence, to protect the alligator as much as the people.

Prior to that, Carlito’s fans had been tossing him tortillas, French

bread, popcorn and a few jelly doughnuts.

Getting desperate, the city put out a call for an alligator

hunter, which can be hard to find in L.A.

They found one in Colorado named Jay Young, who was pretty cocky

when he blew into town. Young, 31, was all over the news for days,

sporting a Crocodile Dundee hat and lecturing reporters about

alligators versus crocodiles versus caimans (smallish alligator types

from South America) and how he was the premier alligator wrangler in

the country.

For two days, with the world watching, Young and his partners

scooted around the lake in powerboats, dangling raw chickens behind

them and trying to set out fishing nets just so. Not only was Carlito

unimpressed, he looked a little amused, at one point chewing through

the net like a hot knife through butter.

“We had him in the net,” Young said, according to a KNBC-TV,

Channel 4, report. “But the boats weren’t able to pull the net around

to close it off to get him trapped.”

Yeah, that’s it.

Young said he had to head home for a prior engagement but hoped to

be back. Answer me this: If someone is the premier alligator wrangler

in the country, what are they doing in Colorado?

Getting more desperate, the city moved on from Colorado to

Florida, hiring Tim Williams and his crew from a reptile theme park

in Orlando called Gatorland. Williams was even cockier than Jay

Young, referring to himself as the “dean of gator wrestling” and his

crew as the “alligator A-Team.”

“We’re not going anywhere till we got a gator on us,” Williams

told a Los Angeles Times reporter.

Apparently, Carlito missed that part, because Williams and the

A-team packed up and headed back to Florida on Saturday afternoon

when the city called off the search.

“We are considering this halftime,” Williams told the reporter

from The Times. “He’s won the first half.”

Yeah, that’s it -- halftime.

For the time being, the city says the fence stays up and park

personnel will watch the lake around the clock. So far, the tab has

come to $50,000, between overtime, fencing, and the lizard pros from

Colorado and Florida.

Now what? We’re done with the experts, send in the politicians.

“My goal is to as quickly as possible catch him safely and alive,”

Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district Carlito is

dissing, said to The Times. “I need to return the shoreline back to

the people.”

I’m sorry, Janice, I was distracted. I think I see Carlito in the

background basking in the sun and gesturing for more chicken.

So where did Carlito come from? Colorado Springs? Boca Raton?

Adventure Land? No, no and no.

He came from right next door. Wednesday, following up on a tip,

police arrested two San Pedro men, Anthony Brewer, 36, and Todd

Natow, 42, on suspicion of possessing illegal exotic animals. At

Brewer’s house, police allegedly found two snapping turtles, three

small alligators, four piranhas, one rattlesnake, three desert

tortoises, six desert tortoise eggs, one scorpion and six marijuana

plants.

Apparently, Carlito was eating the two men out of house and home,

and the turtles, the piranhas and the rattlesnake weren’t too crazy

about him either. They all took a vote, with the three small

alligators abstaining to avoid even the appearance of a conflict, and

the big boy had to go.

The final irony is that the alligator’s name isn’t Carlito. It’s

Reggie. His feelings are hurt over being dumped in a city lake like

an old beer bottle, and he’s too upset to discuss it right now. But

he did enjoy the alligator experts from Colorado and Florida and

hopes they’ll be back.

It all reminds me of something my grandmother must have told me a

thousand times: “The animals are our friends, but don’t get too

chummy with an alligator named Carlito from Harbor City.”

I gotta go.