Flushed baby gator survives

HAMILTON - A baby alligator survived a wild ride down a toilet and through the city's wastewater plant  then promptly snapped his little jaws at one of his rescuers.

"When I got there, he was in a bucket, just kind of sitting there wondering what in the world was going on, and he tried to bite me, as a little gator will do," said Damien Oxier, a Butler County man who heads Arrowhead Reptile Rescue, a nonprofit Greater Cincinnati group of volunteers.

"I felt sorry for him," Oxier said. "We humans put these animals in these situations."

It was remarkable that the foot-long, months-old alligator emerged unscathed despite his perilous path though the city's wastewater pumping station, said Oxier, an animal rescuer for 20 years: "This is
the first time that I've actually had one survive being flushed down the toilet."

Workers think there's no other explanation for the reptile ending up at their plant this week, Oxier said. The alligator apparently passed through a 50-foot-tall "mechanical bar rack" that removes large debris from wastewater and "a mechanized rake" that cleans the rack to deposit debris to the first floor Dumpster, where workers found the alligator, Oxier said.

In a typical year, Oxier's group rescues about a dozen alligators found loose or unwanted in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. A number of those were in Hamilton, where gator sightings in the Great Miami River grabbed headlines in 1998.

Workers at the Hamilton plant told Oxier they have found unusual things caught in the debris-raking system, "but they usually don't find anything alive," he said.

Plant officials contacted Oxier late Wednesday, a day after finding the alligator.

When Oxier was allowed to enter the plant Friday, he found the alligator covered in grease, oil and chemicals. So Oxier went to work, scrubbing the alligator with Dawn dishwashing detergent, which is
known for its grease-cutting properties.

"He didn't like it very much," Oxier said. "He struggled and kept trying to bite me, but toward the end, he just sort of laid there, like he was just going to put up with it."

Then Oxier positioned the alligator in some water in a plastic tub, under a warm light.

"He probably hates me but I'll be the best friend to him, even if he doesn't know it."

As of Friday, the gator had no name.

His treacherous journey rivals one chronicled in "Finding Nemo." In that 2003 Pixar film, a little clownfish escapes from an aquarium and returns to his ocean home after going down a drainpipe.

So Oxier thinks he just might name the little guy "Nemo."

Oxier plans to pick up the animal Monday and take him to a foster home, where he will remain for about a year before being transferred to a wildlife sanctuary.

While it's legal for people to buy alligators in Ohio, some communities forbid ownership. Oxier's group says it does not condone anyone keeping alligators as pets  a responsibility that people generally are unprepared to handle, considering that American alligators can live more than 75 years and can exceed 12 feet long.

For more information, visit www.arrowheadreptilerescue.org.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110930/NEWS01/110930020