{"id":376322,"date":"2025-11-13T16:44:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/376322\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T16:44:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:44:12","slug":"small-alligator-seen-near-charles-river-rescued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/376322\/","title":{"rendered":"Small alligator seen near Charles River rescued"},"content":{"rendered":"

Officials warned on Wednesday that alligators are not native to Massachusetts and that cold temperatures in the state<\/a> posed a threat to its life. <\/p>\n

\u201cAlligators cannot survive in cold temperatures,\u201d a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife said. \u201cMassWildlife is coordinating with Boston Animal Control and Massachusetts Environmental Police to locate and capture the animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the crocodilian creature now resides in a heated tank in Kenney\u2019s facility in Abington, where on Thursday it was \u201cswimming around, acting like a normal alligator,\u201d Kenney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be warmed up for a couple of days before we offer it food,\u201d Kenney said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be seeing a vet today, and we\u2019ll kind of go from there with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sight of an alligator in one of the lagoons adjoining the Charles flummoxed at least two people who saw the creature in the past couple days.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Trevor Rochelle, 26, was walking along the Esplanade when he saw the small alligator, which is illegal to own in the state, according to the state\u2019s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of nudged it to see if it was real and alive and would move,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The alligator was indeed alive and hissed when Rochelle 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

On Tuesday morning, Whitney Lieberman, 28, of East Boston, saw the alligator while she was running to work, again in one of the lagoons.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was hard not to notice,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was kind of swimming around a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI came to the realization that this is probably someone\u2019s pet,\u201d she added. \u201cLike this is not normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement Wednesday, 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

After being interviewed by NBCBoston<\/a> about the alligator Wednesday night, Kenney, the owner of Joe\u2019s Crazzy Critters, said he decided to go searching for it, arriving on the Esplanade around 8:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt bad,\u201d he said. \u201cThe thing was going to freeze out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenney said he saw the creature within 15 minutes after shining his flashlight \u201cdown on some of the lily pads.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was dug down into the mud, you could kind of seeing the yellow coloration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kenney said the alligator appeared to be around 1-year-old, and that he has been in touch with officials about next steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of luck,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Truman Dickerson can be reached at truman.dickerson@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials warned on Wednesday that alligators are not native to Massachusetts and that cold temperatures in the state…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":376323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-376322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115543399649510542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}