Animal control officers in Illinois responded to a call from an elderly woman and discovered that an alligator over 3 feet was roaming her yard.
Virginia Tyus, 87, was watering flowers on the front lawn of her Decatur home when she saw something that prompted her to call her son-in-law, Craig Stevens.
“Well, I see the biggest snake I’ve ever seen in my life,” Stevens told WAND-TV. “Well, it looks like an alligator,” he added.
Stevens, who was attending her grandson’s baseball game with relatives, said her mother-in-law’s report was hard to believe.
According to the outlet, Stevens arrived at the home and immediately called animal control. “I walked among the roses and looked and that’s all I needed to see.”
Macon County animal control was equally hard to convince: “Our initial reaction is one of disbelief and assuming it was a stuffed alligator that looks real,” said animal control administrator Ron Atkins.
Animal control said in a Facebook post that they were holding the reptile until the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (DNR) could pick it up.
DNR officials said they are investigating the origins of the alligator.
“I suspect someone had this as a pet. And it turned out to be more than they expected and they let go or ran away. They probably released it,” Atkins told NewsChannel20.
Officials said the alligator will eventually be released to a long-term care facility to live out its natural life.
Keep reading:
° Arm amputated of a young man who was bitten by an alligator in Florida
° Florida police try to catch an alligator on the beach and discover that it is made of sand
° Video: Tiger shark attacks kayaker off the coast of Hawaii while fishing