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Man keeps alligator in basement for 26 years

By T.K. Randall
January 26, 2016 · Comment icon 14 comments

Would you want to keep one of these as a pet ? Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 H. Zell
A huge alligator had been living in an Illinois man's basement for the better part of three decades.
These days people keep a lot of strange and exotic creatures as pets but while it might not be that unusual to see someone with a pet snake or spider, an alligator is a different matter entirely.

In a bizarre story that emerged this week, a repairman paying a visit to a suburban home in Illinois got the surprise of his life when he discovered a 200-pound alligator inside a cage in the basement.
It later turned out that the owner, Charles Price, had kept the alligator there as a pet for 26 years and nobody else had even known it was there - not even his neighbors.

According to a police report Price had obtained the creature when it only a few centimeters long and had kept it alive by feeding it chicken breasts and by exercising it in his back yard.

He has since been charged with the unlawful possession of an endangered species.

Source: Telegraph | Comments (14)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #5 Posted by Imaginarynumber1 8 years ago
Hopefully it will be returned to where it belongs. It's lived its whole life in captivity. Putting it back in the wild would be a death sentence. It will probably go to a sanctuary.
Comment icon #6 Posted by GreenmansGod 8 years ago
Plus it is habituated to being around humans and taking food from them. It would be too dangerous to release it. They don't know the difference between your hand and food.
Comment icon #7 Posted by Rinna 8 years ago
Oh god, how awful for this creature.
Comment icon #8 Posted by Astra. 8 years ago
What a selfish and cruel thing to do to a creature - what a miserable life the poor alligator must have had. At least he was finally found - and hopefully can live out the rest of his life - in a more suitable environment.
Comment icon #9 Posted by Why not 8 years ago
I live in Florida, and when wild gators get used to people feeding them it is their death sentence. They loose their fear of us, and then you start hearing stories of someone walking there dog by a lake, or pond and fluffy becomes dinner.
Comment icon #10 Posted by Calibeliever 8 years ago
Plus it is habituated to being around humans and taking food from them. It would be too dangerous to release it. They don't know the difference between your hand and food. I visited Sarasota Fl once and on a day trip we went to a park with a sign that read "Don't feed the alligators. They don't understand 'no more'." lol On a serious note: are alligators on the endangered species list? You wouldn't know it in some parts of the south.
Comment icon #11 Posted by pallidin 8 years ago
Gator owner to Obnoxious neighbor: "Hey, let's go down into my comfy basement, play some pool and discuss our differences"
Comment icon #12 Posted by Sundew 8 years ago
If the gator survived from "a few centimeters" to 200 lbs. he must have been giving it decent care, BUT I know a man who lost his arm to a gator, one he knew lived in this lake but "had never bothered anyone before" until the day it did. It's not kind to the animal to have it live in such confinement, even though the reptile brain may not need the stimulation that a mammal or bird requires. As for Alligators being on the endangered list, they may be endangered in some southern states, but I'm guessing places like Louisiana and Florida are not among them, they are overrun with gators to the poi... [More]
Comment icon #13 Posted by freetoroam 8 years ago
Now Charles Price has been charged, hopefully they will bang him up in captivity for 26 years...see how he likes it.
Comment icon #14 Posted by jps 8 years ago
Strangely, most of us don't seem to care about keeping snakes and birds in cages for all their natural lives, but keeping an alligator caged elicits sympathy. Isn't it just a big reptile after all, or are alligators more sensitive to abuse and captivity than snakes and birds etc.? I say save the birds, fish, reptiles and other animals from such restrictive captivity too! Imagine the headline: A repairman got a shock when he spotted a budgie being kept as a pet in the basement of a suburban Illinois home. The 0.0020-pound bird was kept in a cage and had lived in the home for the past 26 years w... [More]


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