Laura Lautner heard about having an alligator for a neighbor when she moved into her Hamburg home 15 months ago.
“I first saw Albert through the window when I heard that there was an alligator living next door and I didn’t believe it,” she said.
She befriended Tony Cavallaro who has been living there since 2006, and has had Albert, an 11-foot, 750-pound alligator, for the last 34 years.
She went over to see Albert being fed. Lautner remembered Cavallaro heating up some chicken before walking over to Albert’s pool that Cavallaro said he had installed in an additional structure he built while the alligator remained submerged. Cavallaro had tapped the edge of the pool and Albert responded by slowly raising his head above the water.
“Tony pet his head and gave him a kiss on his snout. And then he waved a piece of chicken and Albert just slowly opened his mouth,” Lautner recalled. “He was just a very calm, gentle animal. He didn’t move fast. He didn’t come quickly out of the water. He just slowly came up. I was never afraid. Ever. There was nothing to be afraid of.”
On Wednesday, Albert was seized by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which said the animal had “numerous health-related issues,” suffers from blindness in both eyes and has “spinal complications.”
The state seized the animal in conjunction with Hamburg police and the SPCA Serving Erie County “in the interest of public safety and the health, safety and protection of the alligator.”
The alligator was turned over to a licensed caretaker who will care for it until it can be “properly transported for permanent care.”
Authorities said…
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