stolen from a zoo twenty years ago, a female alligator was found at the bottom of a garden

Tewa, a small female alligator, 2.5 meters long (a modest size compared to the six meters of the Nile crocodile for example), has just been found, 20 years after her disappearance. A New Braunfels, Texas zoo volunteer stole an alligator egg in 2003, pocketed it, brought it home, then placed the animal in a vivarium after hatching, and named it Tewa. As the female grows, she builds a makeshift enclosure for her at the bottom of her garden with a small pond. Tewa is therefore 20 years old, she is a beautiful beast, in good health, who has never lived elsewhere since her “mistress” stole her when she was in egg state in 2003.

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No one had noticed his presence in a residential area in south Austin until Friday, March 3. A game warden who was investigating in this area saw him splashing around in his waterhole. However, to keep an alligator in Texas, you need a permit and above all a farm. What the lady didn’t have. She was therefore fined, and unable to release the overly domesticated captive into the wild, three caretakers from the zoo where she was stolen came to pick her up to bring her back to where she was laid, at the zoo of course.

For the past two days, the video of the reptile jumping into the water in the park’s basin has been the delight of Facebook and Instagram. The zoo states that she is fine, that the other reptiles have made her very welcome and reminds that alligators are not pets. Even at the egg stage.