SAN JUAN – Personnel from the Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday captured an alligator more than 1.5 meters (just under 5 feet) long that had been found in a parking lot in northwestern Puerto Rico.
Police reported that a police patrol found the gator next to a parked car at a shopping center in the town of Canovanas.
A police spokesman said that authorities did not know how a reptile of that size got into the parking lot, given the distance between the mall and the nearest body of water.
He said that it was possible that the reptile, disoriented, had wandered into the area or it even could have been abandoned nearby by its owners.
In Puerto Rico, it’s a regular occurrence for people to buy young animals of species that are not native to the island as pets but then, when they grow to adulthood, their owners – not wanting to care for them any longer – simply release them.
Several alligators – a species that is not indigenous to Puerto Rico – have been found recently near a few of the island’s urban areas.