American alligator in Australia

[Owlscrying]

An American alligator has been found wandering around a scout camp on the Australian south coast, leaving wildlife experts baffled as to how it arrived there.

The 5ft reptile was caught when holidaymakers trapped him in a volleyball net and held its jaws shut with gaffer-tape after it had been spotted stalking the campsite in Pambula, New South Wales.

Police were called to the scene at the Noonameena scout camp and found a group of people holding down the reptile.

Police initially assumed they had a saltwater crocodile, a native of Australia's tropical north, but animal experts later discovered it was an alligator belonging to a species native to the south-eastern U.S.

Alligators tend to live in freshwater and have wide u-shaped snouts, where as crocodiles are usually found in saltwater. They have longer, pointy snouts.

Police said checks have revealed that no one was licensed to keep either a crocodile or an alligator in the area and said they were still investigating where the alligator came from.

Source

[Mattshark]

An American alligator has been found wandering around a scout camp on the Australian south coast, leaving wildlife experts baffled as to how it arrived there.

The 5ft reptile was caught when holidaymakers trapped him in a volleyball net and held its jaws shut with gaffer-tape after it had been spotted stalking the campsite in Pambula, New South Wales.

Police were called to the scene at the Noonameena scout camp and found a group of people holding down the reptile.

Police initially assumed they had a saltwater crocodile, a native of Australia's tropical north, but animal experts later discovered it was an alligator belonging to a species native to the south-eastern U.S.

Alligators tend to live in freshwater and have wide u-shaped snouts, where as crocodiles are usually found in saltwater. They have longer, pointy snouts.

Police said checks have revealed that no one was licensed to keep either a crocodile or an alligator in the area and said they were still investigating where the alligator came from.

Source

I'm thinking illegal pet.

[Benz]

doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened here...

Gator stolen from zoo at a young age and when it got to big it was released into the wild