Wildlife officer's hands-free gator trap nets Governor's Award – Herp Digest

by Elizabeth Queram, StarNews Online, November 28, 2013

Matt Criscoe had the epiphany while straddling an 11-foot alligator, preparing to wrap its jaws with electrical tape as a co-worker held its tail steady.

"I kind of thought, ‘Am I really about to do this?' " said Criscoe, an officer with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. "You have to get on their backs and wrestle them to tape their mouths shut, and I just thought, ‘There's got to be a better way.' "

So Criscoe designed one – a hands-free gator trap that enables wildlife officers to capture wandering reptiles and transport them to safe locations, all without having to lay a hand on their scaly skin.

"I got the idea from our biologist, who had a similar device to transport bear and deer," he said. "I just added a few things to it to make it more suitable for us in the field."

The device consists of a 10-foot-long, 24-inch-diameter white tube with steel grates on either end. Officers place the trap on the ground, open the doors and pull the gator into the pipe by looping a lasso around its neck.

"You take the rope, put it through the tube and you just pull him through," said Criscoe, who received the Governor's Award of Excellence for his invention. "Then close the ends. You never have to touch the animal."

Removing alligators and other critters from garages, yards and swimming pools isn't a major part of Criscoe's job, but it's a fairly common occurrence. Since relocating to Brunswick County in 2009, Criscoe has participated in about 30 alligator relocations, eight of them in the past year. Statewide, the Wildlife Resources Commission moves between 20 and 25 alligators per year, but only when the reptiles are in danger or pose a threat to people or animals.

Traditionally, reptile relocation went something like this: Wildlife officers located the alligator and placed a loop around its neck, then let the reptile move around, tiring itself out. One officer would then channel his inner Crocodile Dundee, jump on the gator's back and attempt to restrain it.

"That's how we'd do it – just like you see on TV," Criscoe said. "You put all your weight on his snout, get his mouth shut with both of your hands, pull his head up, and tape his mouth shut. That's the dangerous part."

Next, officers taped the gator's rear legs – because "most gator power comes from the back legs," according to Criscoe – and placed it in the bed of a pickup truck, then drove it to a designated release area.

The process worked, but left officers vulnerable to injury. Criscoe escaped the 11-foot gator with a tooth mark on the shin and a scratch on the elbow, both sustained while wrestling. The trap virtually eliminates that risk, because once the reptiles are settled in the tube, they more or less calm down.

"They can't turn around in the tube, and once they get in there, they kind of chill out until you release them," Criscoe said.

The Wildlife Resources Commission currently has two of the transport devices, built by a fabrication company in Rocky Mount at a cost of about $1,200. Wildlife officers in Bladen County recently used the device to restrain and relocate a 12-foot alligator that had wandered onto the highway. The trap will most likely only be used for larger gators, and Criscoe hasn't yet had a chance to deploy it in the field,

"It's been kind of a slow season, and for the smaller alligators, we'll still do it the way we used to do it," he said. "I don't mind that. It gets the adrenaline pumping, for sure."