An adorable black kitty in Wisconsin has stunned his owner after proving he’s the apex predator in the neighborhood after dragging an alligator head onto her lawn.
Wendy Wiesehuegel was shocked when her cat ‘Burnt Toast’ brought home the ‘unexpected’ find, that neighbors first thought was a big fish.
‘He was very proud of himself. I bent down and I’m like ‘that’s not a northern or a fish that’s a gator,’ she told Fox 6 Milwaukee.
Wiesehuegel said that she thinks she may have seen the alligator on the lake near her home with her brother-in-law a few days before.
‘He just laughed it off like, ‘No, it’s not a gator, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, it probably isn’t one,’ and we just kind of dismissed it, and then this showed up,’ said Wiesehuegel.
Baffled by the scaly surprise, Wiesehuegel called the Department of Natural Resources, conservation warden, Tim Aspenson, who said that a wildlife biologist would need to verify the head.
An adorable black kitty in Wisconsin has stunned his owner after proving he’s the apex predator in the neighborhood when she dragged an alligator head onto the lawn
Wendy Wiesehuegel (pictured) was shocked when her cat ‘Burnt Toast’ brought home the ‘unexpected’ find, that neighbors first thought was a big fish
Wiesehuegel said Burnt Toast was ‘very proud of himself’ when he dragged the scaly creatures head onto the lawn
Aspenson said that he believes it is from an actual alligator, likely three feet long, as opposed to a souvenir head.
He said he suspects the alligator could have been a pet that either escaped or was released into the wild but couldn’t be sure how it ended up without a body and in the jaws of Burnt Toast.
Pictures of the alligator head show the top of the skull intact with scales and teeth grinning, but if turned upside down the bottom jaw is detached and the insides of the skull appear to be missing.
It remains unclear how long this creature has been dead and bobbing in the Waukesha County waterway, but Aspenson said it was truly a ‘very rare’ find and might not be the last.
Wiesehuegel was excited by the prospect that this could be a first find for the region but worried what having alligators in the lake might mean for summer.
‘I was kind of excited at first because you could never see anything [like this] around here,’ she said.
‘And then I thought of the gravity of it and how awful it would be if it was out in the lake, and it was summertime, and people were swimming. That’s not cool.’
In July, just over an hour north of Waukesha County, an alligator was found at a lake in Fond du Lac County.
The alligator found in Long Lake was with J & R Aquatic Animal Rescue, its director saying he believes it was a pet that escaped from its owner.
‘We are going to be holding this guy for about a week after that we are going to try to place him into a sanctuary where he can live out his days outdoors,’ director John Moyles told Fox 11 News at the time.
Baffled by the scaly surprise, Wiesehuegel called the Department of Natural Resources, conservation warden, Tim Aspenson, who believes it is from an actual alligator
The top of the gator’s skull appeared to be intact with scales and teeth grinning, but if turned upside down the bottom jaw is detached and the insides of the skull appear to be missing
It remains unclear how long this creature has been dead and bobbing in the Waukesha County waterway, but Aspenson said it was truly a ‘very rare’ find and might not be the last
DNR Amphibian/Reptile Biologist Rori Paloski typically only gets one report a year of an alligator in Wisconsin.
‘They are definitely not naturally occurring, they are not native to Wisconsin,’ Paloski said.
‘They are always going to be either captive escape pets or captive release pets that get into lakes.’
Experts say the chances of an alligator surviving a Wisconsin winter is very unlikely.
‘Their thermal tolerance in Arkansas is about the furthest north that they can survive in cold winters,’ Paloski said.
Paloski said there are two terms they use for species like the alligator found.
‘One is non-native and one is invasive. For the alligator I would classify them as non-native, being not a native species to Wisconsin,’ he said.
‘They shouldn’t be here, they are not a part of our natural landscape.’
Meanwhile, in September in Kewaskum, reports of an alligator in the local family park were made to police.
While an alligator was not found, DNR officials said the alligator, if there is one, could be a Black Caiman Alligator.
It was also mentioned that the alligator may have been raised domestically and then set free by its owner.
Wisconsin has no laws keeping you from owning exotic animals, but the DNR said alligators like this aren’t native here and could pose a threat.
They’ve reminded people they shouldn’t be released into the wild.