The 3-foot alligator calling LSU home right now doesn’t know how lucky he is.
When he showed up at the small lake near South Stadium Drive in LSU, facility maintenance decided that instead of calling in someone to dispose of the alligator, they wanted to trap him for relocation.
It all started about a month ago when the facility maintenance department received phone calls from people concerned that the alligator showed up just as ducklings around the lake were hatching.
“They were noticing that the ducks were decreasing,” said Ray Dudley, assistant director with facility maintenance at LSU.
Although they could have called for an animal nuisance removal, they decided to do something different.
“We wanted to humanely remove him and move him somewhere else,” Dudley said. “I just really don’t want to have someone come in and exterminate him.”
Instead, the plan is to get him inside the trap alive and then get him relocated somewhere so “he can live out his life,” Dudley said.
After a little research they found the right trap and then placed it on a dry spot of ground along the lake’s edge where the alligator had been fond of sunning himself.
Then it started to rain.
Now the trap is in a few inches of water, which evidently makes the trap the perfect place for the alligator to sun himself. More than once over the last couple weeks, the alligator has crawled on top of the trap to catch some afternoon sun — thumbing his nose at the whole attempt to capture him.
“It has been kind of a joke for us, too,” Dudley said. “So far, he hasn’t crawled up in there far enough.”
But that’s OK, Dudley chuckled. Even if it takes a month or two, it’ll be worth the wait.
“They will eventually get curious enough and hungry enough to go in (the trap),” Dudley said about alligators.