Man sues state agency for seizing his decades-old alligator

Left: New York Department of Environmental Conservation officers secure an 11-foot alligator for transport (New York DEC via AP, File). Right: Tony Cavallaro holds a photo of his alligator, Albert, March 19, 2024 (AP Photo/Carolyn Thompson, File).

It’s not easy being green amid the Empire State’s gods of red tape. Now, an upstate New York man is suing environmental regulators to get his gargantuan reptile back.

Tony Cavallaro, 64, hails from the Erie County town of Hamburg, a suburb of Buffalo. And, for the past 30-plus years, Cavallaro’s residence was home to a giant alligator as well.

Albert the alligator, 34, is currently far from home — at Gator Country Adventure Park in the far-off outskirts of the East Texas city of Beaumont. That’s where he was sent to live following a March raid by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation agents.

In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, Cavallaro aims to reverse the decision that left his 11-foot-long, 750-pound friend tranquilized, carried off in the back of a van, and sent to the Lone Star State.

“In or about August 1990, I lawfully purchased an American alligator,” the lawsuit reads. “I have had a license in good standing for over thirty (30) years, during which time the license was annually renewed by the DEC without incident. Since owning the alligator, I have: always worked cooperatively with the DEC; never received any violations or warnings; always properly cared for the alligator; and always registered the alligator with the Hamburg Police and Fire Departments as required by law.”

Issues, however, arose in 2020, according to the lawsuit.

Around the time of that year’s license renewal, the DEC changed its regulations and alerted Cavallaro to the rule shift. Albert’s owner, in turn, submitted a revamped application with three pieces of supporting information.

In January 2021, the DEC wrote Cavallaro another letter — informing him of additional measures he needed to take to maintain his license for the alligator, the lawsuit says.

The animal’s owner, for his part, said he had already complied and wanted to make sure the DEC officials knew it.

‘Upon receipt of the aforementioned correspondence, I made several phone calls to the DEC in an effort to explain that the information I previously sent over complied with the requests in their letter of January 29, 2021, and also complied with their own regulations,’ the lawsuit goes on. “Nobody from the DEC returned any of my phone calls despite the fact that their correspondence advised me to contact them if I had any questions regarding the new requirements.”

More Law&Crime coverage: In ‘Giant Step’ for animal rights, New York’s highest court will hear habeas corpus case on behalf of Happy the elephant, who lives alone at the Bronx Zoo

Cavallaro says he reached out to the DEC several additional times to obtain some regulatory clarity — even enlisting the efforts of his state senator’s office. Still, the regulators did not communicate further, the lawsuit says.

Then came the raid.

Cavallaro says Albert was taken from the only home he ever knew “without notice” and with the license renewal pending.

“On May 15, 2024, I sent a letter to the DEC regarding their failure to make a decision regarding my application to renew my license,” the lawsuit continues. “On May 24, 2024, the DEC sent me a notice that my application for license was denied for not having safeguards in place to prevent the public from having direct physical contact with the alligator.”

Cavallaro says regulators are not being honest about their after-the-fact rationale for removing Albert from his custom home.

“The DEC’s basis for denying the license is demonstrably false,” the lawsuit argues. “I constructed a facility sufficient to prevent the public from being in close proximity to the animal which the DEC was well aware of as they not only visited the facility, but also received correspondence and photographs from me detailing the secure nature of the enclosure.”

The alligator’s owner also says the seizure and subsequent “license revocation should be canceled as shocking one’s sense of fairness.”

From the filing, at length:

In this case, I have worked cooperatively with the DEC for over thirty (30) years. I constructed an enclosure for the alligator sufficient to protect the public and received no prior warnings pertaining to its sufficiency from the DEC for over thirty (30) years (during which time they renewed my license without incident); received no complaints or warnings pertaining to the alligator; and have always done my best to comply with all laws pertaining to housing and caring for the alligator.To the extent Respondent had any legitimate concerns I should have been afforded some reasonable opportunity to address those concerns. An outright seizure of the alligator and denial of my license was excessive as a matter of law.

Cavallaro argues the agency incorrectly applied legal standards — and invokes the recent US Supreme Court decision that dissolved the long-standing administrative framework known as “Chevron deference” in order to plead his case. As a result of that ruling, federal courts have been strongly empowered to review administrative agency rulings for compliance with statutes. It is unclear, and untested if that landmark case applies to state agencies as well.

Still, the lawsuit asks the court to overrule the decision made by the regulatory body and send Albert back home to Cavallaro.

“In response to their letter and pursuant to its terms, I contacted them repeatedly about the regulations and they never responded,” Cavallaro complains in the lawsuit. “Rather, they seized the alligator without due process of law, without notice and while I assumed my application for a new license was pending. This was procedurally unfair, violated my due process of law and should be annulled.”