When Tom McDonough heard there was an alligator in Frick Park, he decided he had to see it for himself. He put a picnic cooler in the back of his truck and went out in search of the reptile yesterday morning.

	Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Five-year-old cousins Molly, left, and Catherine McDonough, examine the 2-foot-long alligator Tom McDonough caught at Nine Mile Run in Frick Park yesterday morning. Click photo for larger image.

"It was right there in Nine Mile Run -- right where I heard it would be. It's about two feet long. It was just sitting there in the creek, kind of lethargic, perhaps because it was kind of cold last night. It didn't try to bite me or anything. I just picked it up and put it into my Coleman cooler," Mr. McDonough said.

His cousin, Bob McDonough, told him he saw the alligator on Tuesday while walking in the Regent Square end of the Pittsburgh park, near the ball fields.

Tom McDonough, an O'Hara electrician, looked for the alligator before reporting to a job not far from the park. He kept the gator in the cooler while he worked.

"Every time I checked on him he seemed OK," Mr. McDonough said. "I called the zoo but they said they couldn't take him so I called Animal Rescue League and they said they would take it."

But there would be a few more stops along the way.

"I decided to take it home first so my kids could see it. They'd probably kill me if they missed out on this," said Mr. McDonough, who yesterday was answering his cell phone with the salutation "Gators n'at."

Tyler, 8, John, 7, and Catherine, 5, "were all very excited" about the alligator, he said, and his wife, Margie, was OK with the alligator visit.

"I just held it and the kids looked at it and we took pictures. I've got a Cub Scout den meeting tonight and I think I'll take the alligator. I think the Cub Scouts will like it, too."

The Animal Rescue League shelter in East Liberty would be open until 8 p.m. last night, and workers there were expecting the gator.

"We have taken in maybe two alligators in the four years I've been here," said Mark Berton, communications director at the East Liberty shelter. "They stay in a cage until a home can be found. We work with people who help to place reptiles."

The Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium gets 10 to 30 calls per year from people who want to donate an alligator, said Henry Kacprzyk, curator of reptiles and the Kids Kingdom.

"When they outgrow a 40-gallon tank, people don't know what to do with them. You can buy them in pet stores when they are 12 or 14 inches long, but I don't know how people think they can keep them," Mr. Kacprzyk said.

The zoo has one alligator that is 12 years old, 9 1/2 feet long and 372 pounds -- and still growing. "They continue growing for most of their lives," Mr. Kacprzyk said. They average 14 to 15 feet long, but alligators as big as 18 feet have been reported.

The zoo is not looking for a mate or a playmate for its alligator "and we just can't take in every animal," he said.

A two-foot alligator is probably 2 to 3 years old, Mr. Kacprzyk said. The chilly 48-degree temperature on Tuesday night would not hurt the alligator, he said, but they do tend to slow down when temperatures drop.

Everyone assumes the alligator was released into the park, which Mr. Kacprzyk and Mr. Berton said is "irresponsible" because alligators cannot survive in the winter weather of northern states.

"We try to put people in contact with sanctuaries and rescue groups, but all of those people have limits as to how many animals they can take," Mr. Kacprzyk said.