A Beacon Street resident got a surprise when walking his tenant's dog along Horseshoe Pond on Saturday.

He spotted a 2-foot long alligator sunning itself on the bank.

Harlan Robb and his wife, Jackie, who works in the Monitor circulation department, called the Concord police.

"We just were afraid that some child would come down and go fishing," Jackie Robb said.

A Concord dispatcher said the police left the animal in the pond and paged the state Fish and Game Department. Fish and Game Sgt. Bruce Bonenfant said he hadn't heard about the incident as of yesterday afternoon. But he wasn't surprised that it had happened.

The department picked up another alligator in the Bath area a few weeks ago, that one about 3 feet long. Bonenfant said people buy the reptiles as pets when they are a few inches long. They get tired of caring for them as they grow, need bigger cages and eat more and more raw hamburger, he said.

"What do you do with a 2-foot long alligator?" Bonenfant said.

Finding a pet store that will take it is a good idea. Releasing it into the wild is not, he said.

CHELSEA CONABOY