Court officers who were tasked with evicting a family from a Detroit home had quite a surprise and needed some backup.
Officials found a family of alligators inside a home on Detroit’s East Side, WJBK reported.
Detroit Animal Care and Control was called in to help remove several alligators including three baby gators inside a tank.
There was also one adult alligator, Michigan Live reported.
It is apparently not illegal to have an alligator in Michigan according to state law, but also dependent on local municipal laws, Michigan Live reported. It is illegal to have gators in Detroit.
It can also be dangerous and the animals need certain space and environment to thrive, WJBK reported.
“An alligator that’s not fed a proper diet, the entire snout and the mouth will be deformed,” Jovan Stacks, a federally licensed exhibitor, told WJBK. “It looks like whoever had this alligator, they were taking care of it.”
“If you did not have proper filtration - which means the water was not clean enough, the alligator would have sores over it’s body, so whoever had this alligator was definitely taking care of it,” Stacks added.
Detroit police were the original officials on the scene of the eviction but asked for backup when the tenant got angry. He ran from police, and left the area by car.
Detroit Animal Care and Control have custody of the animals, which they can either sell, transfer or euthanize, but the gators will most likely be given to a licensed animal keeper.