A good Samaritan, police and District animal control retrieved a small alligator found in the city’s Washington Channel near the Wharf neighborhood earlier this week.
The small alligator was spotted in the channel Thursday. A bystander in the area captured him using a net.
“I saw him right there suntanning, and they tried to get it, and he splooshed right back into the water,” Phoenix Norwood, 23, told WRC-TV, adding that “I took the net, scooped him up, and then I kind of twisted the net and held it down to the ground until the authorities arrived.”
Metropolitan Police Department personnel who responded to the scene then turned over the reptile to animal control, police said on social media.
The alligator spent Thursday night in the care of the Brandywine Valley SPCA, the District’s contracted animal control agency, and was then sent to an animal sanctuary, the organization said on social media.
A Brandywine Valley SPCA spokesperson told WJLA-TV that the alligator was sent to A.N.A. Critters in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The sanctuary has named the reptile, purportedly a female, “Brandy,” per a social media post.
Officials did not say how they thought the alligator got into the Washington Channel or where it might have come from originally. Owning alligators is illegal in the District, Maryland and Virginia according to WRC-TV.
