Alligator found in Chicago River

CHICAGO, June 21 (UPI) -- Animal control officials say the first alligator ever found in the Chicago River will be shipped to a wildlife sanctuary in the southeastern United States.

The 45-pound gator was captured Friday along a stretch of the river in Chicago's industrial South Side that was once one of the dirtiest waterways in the world but now has been restored and is full of fish, something that could have attracted the reptile, the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday.

Officials think the American alligator, one of the strongest and most aggressive breeds, could have been a transplant or even a dumped pet. It was captured by volunteers from the Chicago Herpetological Society and will be sent to its native area of the U.S. southeast.

"These are not nice animals," one of the volunteers told the Tribune. "These are powerful things, and they are dangerous."

The captured alligator was a juvenile female measuring around 5 feet long, and at full maturity would grow to 10 to 12 feet. It was found in Bubbly Creek, a once-notoriously filthy section of the Chicago River in the Bridgeport neighborhood that that been cleaned up and restored.

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