Reggie Is Back
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 30th, 2007
‘Reggie’ Returns: City Officials Report Sightings Of Lake Machado Gator 4:06 pm PDT April 30, 2007
Los Angeles — The elusive alligator dubbed Reggie was recently spotted in Lake Machado in Harbor City, city officials said.
The reptile had not been seen since October 2005, prompting concerns that the cold-blooded creature may have traveled into a nearby flood control channel, figured out better hiding spots or perhaps died.
The 6-foot gator was first spotted in the 53-acre lake at Harbor Regional Park in the summer of 2005, and a series of trappers made unsuccessful efforts to catch him.
Reggie was apparently dumped into Lake Machado by a former cop and an accomplice when the alligator became too large for a backyard pond.NBC4.tv and KNBC, Los Angeles
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
here’s another one!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-04-30-freeway-gator_N.htm
We have been catching Gators all winter around our TVA nuclear plants in Tennessee. People let them go and they hang around the warm water discharge areas, also around sewage treatment discharges ( more warm “water” ).
What A Croc!
Lake Placid here we come!!!
Don’t let Betty White feed the thing!
They should put him in that county flood channel with Little Reggie.They can live together in bliss.
Gators turn up in the White River here in Indiana from time to time as well. We even have had reports of Piranha and Pacu, which resemble Piranha but are fruit eaters.
I contacted a pet store that specializes in exotic animals and they said that people buy them, then dump them in the river when they get too big to care for where they supposedly die when cold weather comes.
I am extremely happy to hear that Reggie the Gator is still alive and well! I attend art classes at LA Harbor College, which is immediately next to Machado Lake. I have lived in the area for years, and love to take walks around the lake. For people from other states, gators may be no-big-deal, but here in the LA area, having our own gator feels really special. I was really worried that the long absence of sightings meant that he had died. Many of the students have adopted him as an unofficial mascot, and pretty much everybody I know from the area shares the opinion that he should be left alone and allowed to stay in the lake.
I guess the main reason that he is a “problem” is the legal liability if he were to actually hurt someone. Nobody in their right mind would try to swim in that murky water, but the off-chance remains that somebody *could* do it. The certainty that politican’s heads would roll if someone was bitten means they are determined to catch him and relocate him.
alligators, like most animals in North America, have adapted to our civilization, and their numbers are increasing. No doubt population pressure moves gators north, just like it moves wolverines, bears and wolves south.
Just a note on the San Antonio gator.
This is the second gator to be found in San Antonio during the month of April.
These are not “out of place” gators. Alligators are fairly common in the deeper parts of southern Texas. In Atascosa County (the county just south of Bexar County, where S.A. is), every pond of any decent size will have a gator or two in it. It was only a matter of time before they began expanding a little more north and started being found in the S.A. area. I’m honestly surprised it has taken this long.
The first gator to be found in April apparently worked its way up the Salado Creek and was found in an area where two fairly large city parks have created a low-density human population and gave it some privacy.
The second–the big one–looks like it came from nearby Mitchell Lake. This lake has been closed to the public for most of its existence because it was used in water reclamation. It is a good-sized lake and it is connected by creeks to two smaller lakes, the northernmost of which is within easy view of the highway where the gator was found.
Since humans very rarely frequent Mitchell Lake, I’m guessing this won’t be the last gator to be found there. A big lake with very little possibility of human contact makes a great place for gators.
And of course, a little farther south of this area is Choke Canyon Reservoir, which is literally crawling with alligators.