One gator in the pond is gone but New Jersey wildlife workers think there's at least one more menacing creature in the water at Stacy Park in Trenton, so the traps are going back out.
"Most of us here in the neighborhoods have been on three shifts of coming down seeing if we can see him and reporting back to neighbors and every time someone runs down it jumps back into the water," Bill Kearney said on Monday
That's when the state put turtle traps in Long Basin Pond, baited them with venison and dragged them over to the part of the water where the alligator was spotted recently. Efforts to catch the creature up to that point were pretty frustrating.
"As we come upon it in the lake, as we get close to it, it drops down and with the murky water, it's hard for us to see it," said state wildlife worker, Linda Dipiano on Monday.
The trap method did the trick. Wildlife officials picked up the gator, which was about four feet long, Wednesday morning. But they think there's at least one bigger alligator in the water and so the traps were put back out.
No one's quite sure how this gator (or any others) got into the pond in the first place. Wildlife workers figure even though it's illegal, people get them as pets and then have to find a way to get rid of them when they get too big.
