Skip to main content

Mobile handbag

Police in a German town were initially disbelieving when they received a call that an alligator had been seen roaming through the town at night and was close to a local motorcycle shop. However by the time they received several calls they realised that the callers were not mistaken and a quick search soon found the stray alligator, wandering the streets and causing a disturbance to traffic. The police were able to trap the 1m long alligator using equipment usually used for tackling dogs. The alligator was t
February 22, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Police in a German town were initially disbelieving when they received a call that an alligator had been seen roaming through the town at night and was close to a local motorcycle shop. However by the time they received several calls they realised that the callers were not mistaken and a quick search soon found the stray alligator, wandering the streets and causing a disturbance to traffic. The police were able to trap the 1m long alligator using equipment usually used for tackling dogs. The alligator was taken into custody, as much for its own protection as for the safety of the town's citizens. A subsequent enquiry discovered that the alligator had escaped from a circus being held at a school.

Elsewhere in Germany police were forced to deal with a serious llama situation, which also caused traffic upsets. Three police cars raced to aid a frightened female llama that had run away from its over-enthusiastic male suitor. The female llama, named Luisa, jumped over a boundary fence and dodged high speed traffic on an autobahn. Police managed to calm the nervous animal, tempting it into a forest where they sprung upon the llama with a lasso, captured it and returned the runaway to the field where it had started out. It is not clear if special relationship counseling sessions were arranged for either of the troubled llamas.

Related Content

  • Getting a foothold on road safety
    September 3, 2012
    The Indian businessman, Rohit Baluja, has become one of the most articulate and outspoken advocates of road safety in developing countries. A leading figure in his country’s shoe industry, Baluja was converted to the cause that has become his lifelong passion during regular business trips to Europe
  • Liar, liar
    July 16, 2012
    A would-be car thief in the UK has set what is believed to be an international record for the world's most pathetic lie. When caught in the act of stealing a car, the youth claimed, "It wasn't me," despite having his arm trapped inside the vehicle at the time. The car owner heard shouts for help early one morning and found the teenager lying on the roof of the vehicle with his arm stuck inside the door. The youth then uttered his excuse and asked the owner to free him. The owner instead called the police an
  • The Lessons of the Genoa bridge collapse
    April 23, 2019
    The partial collapse of the Polcevera viaduct, better known as the Morandi Bridge, has prompted debate regarding the technical and administrative aspects of maintaining road infrastructures. We discussed it with the engineer Gabriele Camomilla, former Director of Research and Maintenance of the Società Autostrade, who coordinated the only major structural intervention performed on the bridge, carried out in the early 1990s
  • Godshilla makes a run for it and blocks Isle of Wight road
    February 23, 2016
    It was a heart-stopping moment late one night as a car approached an 8m tall animal that was blocking the road. Most people, seeing what should have been an extinct dinosaur – a triceratops – in their path would have turned and run in the opposite direction. But for people in the English village of Godsill, on the Isle of Wight, the dinosaur was a well-known resident, albeit not a living animal. Chris Hollingshead snapped the photo and put it on his Facebook, which can be seen by clicking here.