"We found him under some reeds in grungy water [Tuesday] night about 9:30," said Russ Johnson on Wednesday as Clem hunkered down on a wet piece of carpet in a horse trailer that will deliver him to his new home.
Johnson and members of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Phoenix Herpetological Society have been trying to capture the scrawny, 8-foot-long American alligator since June. He'll be released at the society's compound in a pond built just for him.
The Bureau of Land Management earlier this year contracted with Johnson to remove the alligator and provide a comfortable home for him.
Attempts over six days in June were unsuccessful, but Johnson and a colleague thought they would try again, arriving at the series of seven ponds on Sunday.
Johnson said Clem was caught in one of several loop snares baited with rabbits and positioned along a 700-foot section of rope strung through the 8-foot-tall reeds around the pond shores.
"I was checking the lines with a flashlight on Tuesday night about 9:30 and saw one of the ropes pulled tight," said Johnson on Wednesday. "When I pulled on it, I got a tug and knew we had him. It was a fantastic feeling."
More muscle power would be needed to move the creature, so Johnson called for gator aid, which arrived early Wednesday morning in the form of society volunteers.
Kyle Watkins said Clem did not resist when carried to the trailer from the reeds.
"It's one of the craziest things I have ever done," he said.
Kale Morris, another volunteer, said when it came time to lift the alligator, it was worn out from its attempts all night to escape the snare and did not resist.
"It was surprisingly light," said Morris Wednesday while resting in a pickup truck that offered refuge from the 118-degree temperature.
Johnson said the alligator was apparently let loose at Pakoon Springs by a rancher when the reptile was just a juvenile.
It survived because the water that feeds the springs is 78 degrees and the rancher supplemented the cold-blooded creature's staple diet of mosquito fish, bullfrogs and rabbits with chickens, coyotes and ostriches, which were raised on the ranch.
Clem is terribly underweight, according to Johnson, who said the alligator should weigh 250 to 300 pounds, but only weighs about half of what it should.
"You shouldn't be able to put your arms around it like you could now," said Johnson.
No one was too anxious to hug the reptile, who hissed at anyone who approached the corner of the trailer.
When Clem arrives at his new digs at the Herpetological Society's sanctuary in Scottsdale, it will be complete with a pond of clear water, a waterfall and a grassy area. Meals will be served, so all Clem has to do is relax for the rest of a life that could be more than 70 years.
David Boyd, a spokesman for the BLM, said Wednesday that rancher Chuck Simmons released Clem in the ponds in 1987. Simmons sold his 270 acres to the agency in 2002 for incorporation into the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument with a provision that Clem be rounded up and cared for.
There had been no confirmed reports of Clem sightings since the sale of the property until March, when BLM workers spotted the alligator and again in May when a ranger observed the reptile with night-vision goggles.
Boyd said the BLM will spend $6,700 rounding up Clem and setting him up at the sanctuary.
At the new location, Johnson said the same signs the BLM put up around the springs warning people of the alligator will be hung.
"He's a tough son of a gun," said Johnson of Clem's ability to survive in what is nearly the opposite of an alligator's normal environment. "It's a tough place for a snake to make a living let alone an alligator. He is the epitome of adaptation."
mhavnes@sltrib.com
