{"id":2295,"date":"2022-06-21T14:04:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T14:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2022\/06\/21\/celebrity-alligator-los-angeles-park-zoo-science-humor-evolution\/"},"modified":"2024-03-05T16:57:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T16:57:28","slug":"celebrity-alligator-los-angeles-park-zoo-science-humor-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2022\/06\/21\/celebrity-alligator-los-angeles-park-zoo-science-humor-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"A science writer with comedic timing profiles an alligator with star power"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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\n G<\/span>reat story ideas are everywhere, and Corinne Purtill<\/a> spotted a gem on a family trip to the Los Angeles Zoo, where she learned the story of a celebrity with a checkered past.

Purtill had just joined the Los Angeles Times to cover science and behavior, and didn’t know if editors would embrace her quirky pitch. (On her website, she describes her approach as “Paying attention and writing things down.”) But she won their full support, and dove into interviews and research with the thoroughness needed on her beat. The result was a funny and surprisingly informative story about the city\u2019s history with a wily alligator named Reggie<\/a>.

In 2005, Reggie was released into L.A.\u2019s Lake Machado when he outgrew pethood. (\u201cThe lake was the size of 15 Costcos. Food was abundant.\u201d) Once his presence was discovered, he became a regular draw for curious crowds and reptile experts who would gather, often with picnic baskets in tow, in hopes of a sighting. Or, as Purtill writes:
\u2026 a teenage Reggie crawled out of the water for a sunbath, and a city lost its mind.<\/blockquote>
For two years, he eluded capture until he was corralled in 2007. So popular had he become that local TV stations provided live coverage of his transport to the zoo.

\"Los<\/a>
Corinne Purtill<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Reggie\u2019s story doesn\u2019t end there. The last 15 years have included a a brief escape from his zoo enclosure, a romantic relationship gone wrong and another gone right \u2014 or at least companionably. Purtill captures it all in part celebrity profile, part nature study, part outlaw drama, all pinned to the anniversary of Reggie\u2019s arrival at the zoo.

\u201cThe 15th\u00a0anniversary of a rogue alligator\u2019s capture is, clearly, a non-event,\u201d Purtill told me. \u201cBut it was enough of a peg for me to pitch a story looking back at this weird chapter in L.A. history, which I thought would be enormously fun to write. I love what animal stories tell us about the people around them.\u201d

Purtill finds a humorous voice to use throughout \u2014 as an example, she writes:
What Reggie makes of his unusual life story is a mystery. An alligator brain is the size of a peanut.<\/blockquote>
Or, when Reggie\u2019s first owners decide to leave him to fend for himself in the wilds of Los Angeles:
Alligators, though, are nothing if not survivors.<\/blockquote>
That sets up a quick bit of history, in which Purtill informs us that crocodile-type reptiles roamed with the dinosaurs some 95 million years ago. Reggie\u2019s crowd, the American alligator hasn\u2019t changed in the last eight million years:
\u2026, as if it had simply opted out of a evolution.<\/blockquote>
But the story is more than a string of punchlines. Purtill, who joined the Los Angeles Times this past April after writing for The New York Times, The New Yorker and Time, weaves chronology, humor and insight in a story that carries the readers into a who-knew chapter the city\u2019s can\u2019t-make-it-up past.

A few key lessons stand out from an email conversation with Purtill about her story, followed by a fuller Q&A: