University lab helps raise wild Oklahoma alligators

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DURANT, Okla. -- A baby alligator swam toward the center of the black tub in the lab and nipped its sibling's tail playfully."They're always doing that," said biologist and Southeastern Oklahoma State University professor Tim Patton, gesturing to the tub.Inside, a baby alligator scurried onto a cinder block to bask beneath the glow of a grow lamp.The nest of 19 baby alligators, who are five to six weeks old, are the newest addition to the Southeastern family, and they've garnered quite a following."It's interesting that we can do a lot of work in obscurity, and nobody ever really shows that much interest," Patton said. "Then we get something like (alligators) ... and then all of a sudden people are coming around and they want to see them."Patton said Oklahoma is home to a small alligator population in the southeastern corner of the state.During about the middle part of the last century, the American alligator populations in southeastern Oklahoma were decimated, mostly from hunting or poaching to use their skins for wallets, boot and purses, Patton said.The alligators were listed as an endangered species, and that protection, in addition to efforts to improve the alligators' habitats, enabled the population to grow again."(The alligators) made it back to Oklahoma themselves," Patton said. "They've been successfully reproducing in Oklahoma for a couple of years."The state Department of Wildlife Conservation biologist David Arbour had been monitoring a nest of 23 eggs in McCurtain County when he realized the mother alligator was missing, Patton said. Arbour continued to check on the nest for an additional month.Because the mother alligator had been missing for over a month, Arbour decided to dig up the baby alligators himself when the eggs he'd monitored finally hatched, Patton said."We don't know if she just left or if she was poached," Patton said. "It's unlikely that she would have left voluntarily. She had a nest."Rearing the alligators has become a collaborative effort between Patton, the university, the U.S. Forest Service and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.Their plan is to keep the alligators in a heated room with grow lights, feed them and keep them active all winter in order to maximize their growth rates, so when they release the alligators in McCurtain County, they'll have a better chance of survival.Patton said they hope to attach radio transmitters to the alligators when they are released to monitor their activities."It's only when we start excessively reducing their numbers and destroying their habitats that we have to start doing things like (rearing wildlife in captivity) to make sure they can survive. As long as we can maintain healthy habitats, then we can maintain healthy populations."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)