Alligator sightings have prompted city officials in Coppell to issue a warning.
A gator was spotted in northeast Coppell, in and around small ponds and tributaries along Denton Creek.
Residents should avoid swimming, fishing or entering water in the area, the city said in a Facebook post.
“And DO NOT feed the alligator,” the city warned.
As alligators are a regulated species, the city cannot remove or relocate its new “reptilian resident” without authorization from Texas Parks and Wildlife, it said. Coppell is working with the agency and will provide updates as available.
Gators aren’t unusual in Texas. Up to half a million live in the state, but they are concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of the state. They do occasionally wander through North Texas, though.
Alligators have been spotted at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge and in the Trinity River, Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Lewisville. In 2022, a 3.5-foot alligator was even found by a bank ATM in Lake Worth.
Gators are actually native to the area, Mark Pyle, with the DFW Herpetological Society, told The Dallas Morning News in 2021.
“When everybody sees or hears about an alligator in North Texas, all the alarm bells go off; everybody panics and freaks out,” Pyle said. “Little do they know that we’re definitely within the historic range of alligators. There’s nothing abnormal about finding an alligator here in the lakes in North Texas.”