g'day tax dodgers,
A couple of days ago a North American alligator was found wandering in a scout camp a few miles south of here.
Finding a crocodile on the Australian south coast is strange. Finding an American alligator here is even more unusual.
So police assumed they had a crocodile, a native of Australia's tropical north, when vacationers caught a reptile in a volleyball net late Monday that had been wandering around their campsite.
Police on Tuesday corrected an initial press statement to explain that the 5-foot (1.5-meter) reptile was, in fact, an alligator.
Odder still, Craig Adam, manager of the Australian Reptile Park (North of Sydney) said that the captured creature belonged to a species native to the southeastern United States. 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 is licensed to keep either a crocodile or an alligator in the area. They are still investigating where the alligator came from.
I enjoyed listening to a radio interview with a neighbour Kerry while she was driving 200Km up the coast to Mogo Zoo with the gator on the back seat of her car - mouth taped shut.
The animal in question:
[img]http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2006/03/alligatorPA100306_175x125.jpg[/img]
