{"id":288079,"date":"2025-11-13T00:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T00:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/288079\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T00:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T00:16:11","slug":"this-is-not-normal-officials-investigate-after-small-alligator-seen-near-charles-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/288079\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This is not normal.\u2019 Officials investigate after small alligator seen near Charles River"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">Wildlife officials in Boston are trying to locate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2021\/04\/09\/metro\/boston-public-garden-used-have-baby-alligators-yes-alligators-people-fed-them-rodents\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2021\/04\/09\/metro\/boston-public-garden-used-have-baby-alligators-yes-alligators-people-fed-them-rodents\/\">a small alligator<\/a> that at least two people saw over the past few days in a pond along the Charles River. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">Trevor Rochelle, 26, of Cambridge, was walking along the Esplanade on Sunday afternoon around 1:30 when he saw the creature, which is not native to Massachusetts and is illegal to own in the state, according to the state\u2019s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">\u201cI kind of nudged it to see if it was real and alive and would move,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">The alligator was indeed alive and \u201chissed\u201d at Rochelle when he tapped its nose with a stick. It then \u201cmoonwalked\u201d backwards into one of two lagoons that connect to the Charles River and disappeared from view, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">Two days later, at around 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Whitney Lieberman, 28, of East Boston, saw the alligator while she was running to work, again in one of the lagoons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">\u201cHe was hard not to notice,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was kind of swimming around a little bit.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">\u201cI came to the realization that this is probably someone\u2019s pet,\u201d she added. \u201cLike this is not normal.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">In a statement, a spokesperson for the division of fisheries and wildlife said the officials are \u201caware of a video showing an alligator that was reportedly taken along the Charles River Bike Path.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">\u201cAlligators cannot survive in cold temperatures,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cMassWildlife is coordinating with Boston Animal Control and Massachusetts Environmental Police to locate and capture the animal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">Rochelle said he hopes that officials will find the alligator before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph | gutter_20_0\">\u201cIt does not belong in Boston,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re glad that it\u2019s alive, but now I just want to try to follow up, close the loop, and get it to the right place.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"tagline | font_primary inline_block  margin_top_32\">Truman Dickerson can be reached at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2025\/11\/12\/metro\/alligator-seen-on-charles-river\/mailto:truman.dickerson@globe.com\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"font-size:inherit;letter-spacing:.5px\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">truman.dickerson@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wildlife officials in Boston are trying to locate a small alligator that at least two people saw over&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-288079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}