Alligator Sighting Along Colorado River in Palisade
07/27/10 - 07:55 PM
 RSS Feed

Palisade Police Officer Taylor Tonello considers it one of the most bizarre calls he has ever responded to. “Tuesday morning, the call came in as an alligator in Riverbend Park,” Officer Tonello said.

Officer Tonello said the woman who reportedly saw the alligator was very credible. “The woman was from Florida, and said she knows what they look like,” Tonello said. “She didn’t want to report it, but she did see an alligator in the Colorado River.”

The woman said she saw a five-foot alligator swimming in the river. When it saw her dog walking along the bank, it came out of the river towards it. The woman says she called her dog back up onto land and the alligator retreated back into the river, slapping its tail and heading back down a current.

Two tubers who planned on a day-long trip down the river called it a day after seeing Tonello, the woman, and their own possible sighting of the alligator.

“I got scared right away,” said one of the tubers. “I said, ‘Let’s get out.’”

It didn’t take long for her river companion to come to the same conclusion.

“We got out and sat along the river there,” said. “Then we did hear a big splash, but didn’t see where it came from.”

While the sighting of an alligator in Palisade may seem impossible, the Colorado Division of Wildlife says it’s entirely possible the sighting was real and there actually is an alligator prowling the Colorado River.

“These things aren’t that rare,” J.T. Romatzke of the Colorado Division of Wildlife said. “People do have exotic domesticated wildlife, and they want to release them into the wild.”

The DOW says they respond to at least one alligator or crocodile sighting every two years, including one just over a year ago in July of 2009. A four-foot alligator was found dead in a ditch up in the mountains outside of Hotchkiss.

“It’s obviously not the natural environment that it’s used to,” Romatzke said. “The currents, the different things, including food sources—it will be very difficult for this animal to survive.”

Romatzke says the alligator, if real, would only be able to survive about a month. If you spot the alligator, you are urged to call the Division of Wildlife immediately at (970) 878-6090.

This entry has been viewed 1479 times.

KREXTV.com requires that you be a registered site member to post comments and content.

login | register

Why Register?
First, we are not being sneaky and gathering your email or other information to sell to telemarketers or e-mail spam companies.

Registration on this site is required simply to allow us to keep people who would post discriminatory, threatening and harassing messages and comments from doing it again.

By having user registration, we hope to provide you with a better user experience. Please view KREXTV.com's full Terms & Conditions