FAIR OAKS, Calif. — In a very unlikely place to see alligators, a man says he found a 7-foot reptile in the American River at Sailor Bar in Fair Oaks.
"Hopefully, there's just that one," said Robert Valenti, who has visited Sailor Bar almost every day for about five years.
The Wildlife Care Association says they first learned about the alligator last week from a man who told them he was trying to help out his neighbor.
"He said, 'I'm trying to help my neighbor out.' He was fishing at Sailor Bar and he noticed that there was an alligator sitting on the rocks. He said, 'So I went over there with my trailer. I saw the alligator. It was hissing and I jumped on the alligator, taped it's mouth shut and put it in my trailer,'" said Sandra Foreman, the facility manager at the Wildlife Care Association.
Foreman doesn't believe the alligator has been living in the American River for a long time.
She says the cold water would have made it difficult to survive, and she believes someone kept the reptile as a pet and dumped it when it got too big to handle.
However, that's for the Department of Fish and Wildlife to decide. The agency has the animal in their care, and will now figure out where it came from.
"They are trying to understand the suspiciousness of the situation. Because they were already getting tipped off about an alligator in the Sacramento area. And I believe, they were trying to confirm that was in fact the alligator they were getting tipped on," said Foreman.
The Wildlife Care Association is warning that California has very strict laws on people owning wildlife because of safety concerns.
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