An alligator was found outside a Dallas middle school early Wednesday morning just hours before students arrived there for classes.
A Dallas Police officer on patrol after midnight spotted what he initially thought was a log in front of Steam Middle School, but on approach realized that it was a six-foot alligator,
wrote KXAS-TV.
Dallas County game warden officials were contacted and captured the alligator after arriving around 4 a.m. The alligator, though, put up quite a fight, snapping and rolling over before officials got it under control,
reported WFAA-TV.
"That's the hardest and most dangerous part of capturing an alligator,"
county game warden Jamie Sanchez told The Dallas Morning News. "After we taped its mouth, we put it in the back of my truck to take to the wilderness preserve."
While the school day was not disrupted, students were not allowed on the school's soccer field near where the alligator was found as a precaution, wrote WFAA-TV. Steam Middle School has about 240 sixth grade students, noted the television station.
School officials told WFAA-TV that while there is a small creek and pond close to the school, no one actually knows where the gator came from. Sanchez told KXAS-TV that he believed the animal may have wandered to the school grounds from the nearby Trinity River.
Officials reportedly wanted to move the alligator to the Palmetto-Alligator Slough Preserve in Seagoville, Texas, but could not obtain a permit quick enough, so it was released to the Trinity River in south Dallas County.
Sanchez said that while gator sightings are uncommon in the Dallas city limits, they do pay visits from time to time. The newspaper said a 10-footer was previously pulled from the Trinity River by Dallas County game wardens and a blind alligator was found in the river near downtown Fort Worth last July.
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