Alligator removed from Hamilton homeowner’s backyard; no one hurt
A Hamilton man’s plans to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary turned unexpectedly wild when he discovered an alligator lying in his back yard.
Walter Ertsinian said the discovery of the 1.5-metre-long reptile nearly derailed dinner plans he’d arranged with his wife and children as the family grappled with the issue of what to do with the animal, which would typically be more at home in a tropical climate.
Ertsinian said it was his daughters, aged 18 and 11, who first came upon the alligator on Tuesday night as they were wrapping up a swim in the family pool and noticed something off to the side.
“They both looked at it and said, ‘maybe dad bought something for the pool like a vinyl blowup thing, or maybe dad bought some kind of weird statue as a joke and put it on the side and didn’t tell us,’” Ertsinian said of the girls’ initial reactions. “And then they saw the head move and said, ‘no, it’s alive!’”