Police have seized a baby alligator that had been living inside a St. Vital home.

The alligator was found inside the home on Wednesday, after Animal Services officers and Winnipeg police were tipped off about it.

“The owner was co-operative and surrendered it,” said Animal Services COO Leland Gordon. “He was aware that they are illegal.”

Alligators are illegal in Winnipeg under the Responsible Pet Ownership bylaw. Officials are investigating and charges are pending against the alligator’s owner, said Gordon. The fine can be as much as $1,500.

For the moment, the alligator is staying at the Assiniboine Park Zoo. But the Winnipeg zoo won’t be its permanent home.

“Animal Services called to see if we could help out while they dealt with the situation, and we agreed,” Gary Lunsford, the zoo’s general curator, said Thursday. “Now, they’re deciding what its future will be. But we don’t have the facilities to keep an alligator here long-term.”

The alligator, who Lunsford said is between one and two years old, will be kept in quarantine at the zoo’s veterinary clinic for a month while Lunsford checks on accredited zoos that might be willing to take him.

The local zoo does keep spectacled caimans but they are more adaptable to the weather here than the American Alligator, whose natural habitat is found in such areas of the United States as Florida, Louisiana and Texas. To keep one here full-time, a new building that could house it over the winter would have to be built “at a significant expense,” Lunsford said.

The gator, while relatively small now, can grow upwards of 15 feet and weigh up to 1,000 pounds in adulthood.

“People need to think long and hard about the kind of animals they get as pets,” Gordon said. “And the American Alligators are not appropriate as pets. They’re not supposed to be living in Manitoba, as people can’t provide its natural habitat. They can’t give it a decent quality of life.

“It looks cute now, but it will grow fast.”

They are also dangerous.

“An American Alligator has 200-300 pounds worth of snapping power,” said Ste. Anne’s Vern Ruml, former owner of Ruml’s Reptiles. “They are docile but powerful.

“I would never allow a child to be left unsupervised with any crocodilian, even a baby alligator, because of its power. It’s potentially dangerous. If you get bit, it can cause serious lacerations.”

Ruml said he had owned a spectacled caiman, which he kept in a room in his house, but it recently passed away.

jim.bender@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @bendersun