5-foot-long alligator captured in Fall River

About 45 minutes earlier, Schenck had received a text message from his brother about the alligator.

“I thought he was crazy,” Schenck said. Less than an hour later, he was face to snout with the beast.

“When I got there, no one was going to go into the swamp, and the general consensus was that the environmental police would just put it down,” Schenck said. “I’m one of those people that refuses to see an animal die, even if it requires me to jump in a swamp full of leeches.”

Moments later, he emerged with the alligator in his arms; its jaws wrapped shut with electrical tape.

“Thank God [Schenck] was there,” Berard said. “He’s amazing.” Two weeks ago, Schenck captured a 5-foot-long boa constrictor in Fall River.

But without a permit, Schenck couldn’t keep the alligator. In Massachusetts, the reptiles are only allowed for educational or scientific purposes. In Rhode Island, any adult resident can own one.

Sunday night, Massachusetts Environmental Police took the alligator from scene, which is located about a mile from the Rhode Island border. Schenck guessed the animal had been let loose or escaped from a private owner, and wandered north into Massachusetts.

Kate Plourd, spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said the gator is now with a herpetologist, a reptile specialist.

“From here on out, the herpetologist will help place the animal,” Plourd said. “He will find a legal home for it outside the state.”

Schenck said the alligator was healthy, evidenced by her fat tail. He said the approximately 5-year-old animal was average size for its age. North American alligators can grow up to 12-feet-long and weigh up to 500 to 2,000 pounds by the end of their 40 to 50-year life span, he said.

“It’s a perfect specimen – the color index, fat storage in the tail,” he said. “I guarantee it’s cleaned out any rat population in that area.”

Schenck surmised the animal had been loose all summer, because of a dozen leeches the size of a half-dollar hanging from her stomach. Schenck said he plucked 14 leeches off his own body after emerging from the swamp.

But with the winter coming, the animal would not have survived much longer, he said.

Now Schenck wants to adopt the gator for his traveling animal-education program, which also features a 90-pound tortoise and a 6-foot iguana.

“I feel attached. ... I want to file a permit for this thing and use it for the educational series,” Schenck said. “I kind of saved its life, so I want to see a happy ending.”