(ran East, Beach, West editions) Keri Christie had seen the alligator in Crescent Lake before, but on Wednesday, with the sun shining and dozens of kids playing near the water's edge in every direction, she decided it was time to call the gator people. Dressed in a T-shirt and loose pants for a late afternoon walk, she had been strolling along the west side of the lake when she saw the alligator lying in the grass. "He was probably about 15 feet from the water," she said. From a nearby resident she heard stories about a man who came every afternoon to feed bread to the alligator. Then there were the children who had pulled a duck out of the alligator's mouth. "At that point I was sure he'd need to be removed," Christie said. She grabbed her cellular phone. "I dialed the 800 number (for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission). They told me not to let it back in the water," she said with a laugh. "I said, "Are you going to leave him there?' And they said "Oh, no. He's lost all fear. We've got to get him out of there.' " "I felt compelled to call," Christie said, "because I think children have a natural curiosity." Sandy Myers was walking in the grass on the same side of the lake when she looked ahead and noticed what appeared to be a palm frond or a branch lying in her path. She glanced down again, with her foot just inches from the object, and got a big surprise. It was the alligator. "I saw a couple of them out here a couple of weeks ago," Myers said. "When they're out there, they can run faster than a child can." Children catching fish, turtles and tadpoles at the water's edge are a common sight at Crescent Lake Park, as are people walking small dogs close to shore. Despite signs warning of the dangers of alligators, some parkgoers said they have never seen alligators in the water. And because the park sits amid residential neighborhoods and near busy streets, they said they thought no gators actually lived there. But to many other visitors, alligators are a common sight. On the south side of the lake, near two large drainage culverts, four children watched two ducklings on the shore at the water's edge. Several yards away, an alligator floated in the water, only its eyes visible above the surface. Sarah Saout, 10, her brother Brian, 11, and their friends Richard Hubbard, 12, and Ronald Shannon, 11, retrieved the ducks, which they said a friend had hatched from eggs and released into the lake only two days earlier. Sitting about 10 feet from shore, the children said the alligator should be removed. "It's too dangerous. There's baby kids over there," Sarah said, gesturing toward the banyan trees that grow along the lake's eastern edge. Joe Borelli, the state-subcontracted alligator trapper for Pinellas County, was in Seminole loading the second of two alligators he had caught Wednesday when the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission called, telling him to go to Crescent Lake. Borelli and his wife, Inez, finished loading those alligators _ one just more than 5 feet long, the other nearly 8{ feet despite missing a good deal of its tail _ then made the drive to St. Petersburg. By 7:30 p.m. he was leaning against the railing that stands over Crescent Lake's southern drainage culverts, pointing out spots where he has removed alligators from the lake on earlier visits. "I pulled a seven-footer out of here," he said, pointing left. "I pulled several out up there," he said, gesturing toward the right, to a spot on the shore under the shadow of some trees. All of the gators the Borellis catch are taken to a state-approved processing facility in Pasco County, where they are killed and skinned. A few minutes later, Inez Borelli saw an alligator through her binoculars. She thought she saw a second one, but Joe Borelli had a permit to remove just one alligator from Crescent Lake. Using a hook baited with beef lung, Joe Borelli tempted one of the alligators. "He acts like a gator that's been fed," he said. "Any gator that's been fed will go after (the bait). Wild gators take off." Within two hours, the Borellis caught their third alligator of the day. Joe Borelli taped its jaws closed, covered its eyes with tape and trussed up its legs. Amid a gathering group of parkgoers, the Borellis measured the alligator. It was 5 feet, 3 inches.