Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – The calls came from as far away as Hawaii: Spare Crusty.
The gator was one of four who hung around rest stops and boat ramps in the Everglades. After being fed by humans, they had become overly friendly and potentially dangerous. Having lost their fear of humans, the law said they had to be destroyed.
But public attention, and an anonymous donor, has led to a permanent stay of execution. Three of the four condemned reptiles embarked Friday on a new life in a shady gator pit at an animal exhibit in the Seminole Reservation in Hollywood, Fla. Crusty is still on the loose.
“They’ve got it better here than they did out there,” said Todd Hardwick, Miami-Dade’s noted alligator trapper who helped arrange for the reptiles’ new home. “They’ll be cared for, get fed.”
Crusty and three swamp mates were to be caught and destroyed, until the calls came in.
“Everybody was getting calls,” Hardwick said. “A lot of people felt sorry for the gators.”
Now the gators – minus Crusty – slosh in the pit at the Seminole Village under the care of manager Jimmy Riffle.
“We’re going to use them for educational purposes, to show what happens when you introduce food to alligators and the danger of it,” Riffle said.
