A Texas woman was reported by her neighbor for raising an alligator as a pet at her home in Buda, TX.
Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens, with the assistance of staff from the Animal World and Snake Farm Zoo in New Braunfels, removed the alligator and rehomed it at the zoo.
The alligator was 7 feet long and had once been a resident at the Animal World and Snake Farm Zoo.
The woman had allegedly stolen the alligator egg or the hatchling from the zoo, where she had worked as a volunteer some twenty years earlier.
In Texas, it is a misdemeanor to take, sell, purchase, or possess an alligator, alligator egg, or any part of an alligator without a permit.
Only five U.S. states allow residents to own alligators as pets without any permits or licenses, according to World Population Review. Residents of Alabama, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin can own an alligator with zero legal repercussions and no paperwork.
Twenty-five states prohibit ownership of an alligator, and the remaining states require a permit or license.
When game wardens realized the woman would not be able to obtain a permit for the alligator, they called the zoo from which the woman had allegedly stolen it some two decades earlier.
The alligator has since settled in with the other gators, where she will spend the rest of her life.
This illegal possession of alligators as pets is not an isolated incident, as a handful of cases have occurred in the past few years. Last October, a 32-year-old man in Washington state was found living in a shipping container with an alligator and a sickly bovine calf.
