{"id":350417,"date":"2026-04-09T13:51:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/man-ends-fight-to-reclaim-albert-his-12-foot-alligator-seized-in-2024"},"modified":"2026-04-09T13:51:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:51:54","slug":"man-ends-fight-to-reclaim-albert-his-12-foot-alligator-seized-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/man-ends-fight-to-reclaim-albert-his-12-foot-alligator-seized-in-2024","title":{"rendered":"Man ends battle to reclaim Albert, his 12-foot alligator seized in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB \">HAMBURG, N.Y. &#8212; <\/span>An upstate New York man who <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/alligator-seized-new-york-albert-0fb6a00ffc1bed34ce2ff9a753a2d893\">had his alligator seized<\/a> after sharing a home for more than three decades has given up his court fight to get back the reptile he affectionately named Albert.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Tony Cavallaro sued the state Department of Environmental Conservation after officers met him with a warrant in the driveway of his suburban Buffalo home in March 2024. The officers sedated the 12-foot (3.6-meter), 750-pound (340-kilogram) alligator and drove him away in a van. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Albert, who lived in an indoor swimming pool, eventually ended up in a sanctuary in Texas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Cavallaro sued over the state&#8217;s denial of a license to keep Albert. But he decided in March to throw in the towel after almost two years of costly litigation with no quick end in sight, according to his attorney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cTony\u2019s upset,\u201d attorney Peter Kooshoian said Thursday. \u201cHe had the animal for over 30 years \u2014 never had a problem until this occurred. So he doesn\u2019t feel he was treated correctly by the government.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Even if Cavallaro prevailed, he believed the state would be heavily regulating how he took care of the animal, Kooshoian said<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Cavallaro\u2019s license to keep Albert had expired in 2021, according to the department. But even if it had been renewed, Cavallaro had let other people pet the alligator and even get in the pool with him, providing grounds for the removal under the rules for keeping animals classified as dangerous, the agency said after the seizure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The seized alligator had blindness in both eyes and spinal complications, among other health issues, according to the state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Cavallaro has insisted that Albert was \u201cjust a big baby\u201d who had never shown signs of aggression. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He bought the alligator at an Ohio reptile show when it was two months old and considered him an \u201cemotional support animal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/US\/wireStory\/buffalo-area-man-ends-fight-reclaim-albert-12-131887840\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HAMBURG, N.Y. &#8212; An upstate New York man who had his alligator seized after sharing a home for more than three decades has given up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":350420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27188,27189,27187,1913,27186,419,1108,27185,102,27190],"class_list":["post-350417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-albert","tag-buffalo-dwelling","tag-division-of-environmental-conservation","tag-federal-government","tag-hamburg","tag-new-york","tag-ohio","tag-peter-kooshoian","tag-texas","tag-tony-cavallaro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350417"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350419,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350417\/revisions\/350419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}