Mountain bikers find Kiski Township alligator that had been missing for months

KISKI TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) -- Two mountain bikers found an "elusive" alligator that had been missing for months in Kiski Township.

Dan Murray said he was mountain biking with Rob Perri at Roaring Run Friday evening when they rode by a pair of ponds and saw what looked like an alligator at the edge of the trail. Murray said he thought it was fake, but once they stopped, they realized it was alive. 

They called police who said they would come to take the alligator. Murray said he and Perri decided to head toward the parking lot instead of waiting on the trail since it was getting dark. 

Murray picked up the alligator and biked to the trailhead to meet police, the gator dangling from his hand. He said he wasn't scared.

"It did move but it was slow. I'm assuming because it was cold. It hissed a lot I just held it behind the head while I rode," he said in an email to KDKA-TV. 

Once the bikers got to the parking lot, officers taped the alligator's mouth shut and put it in the police car.   

Kiski Township police said they believe they've apprehended the "elusive" Neo, who went missing in September after his owner Austin Randall said the gator made a break for it when he was moving the animal to a friend's house. 

The alligator will be taken to Nate's Reptile Rescue in South Park Township, then he'll head to a permanent home in Florida. 

Randall and another man connected to Kiski Township's slew of alligator sightings last year were ordered to pay fines after pleading guilty in December. Randall and Dominic Hayward both pleaded guilty to violating rules and regulations of the transportation and sale of fish. They were each fined $179, court records show. 

Humane agents in October seized 10 gators from Hayward's home, citing safety concerns for the animals. It followed a summer of multiple alligator sightings on the Kiski River. 

In:
• Alligator