‘He was very proud of himself’: Cat finds alligator head in Wisconsin lake

WAUKESHA COUNTY, Wis. — “Look what the cat dragged in” took on new meaning for a woman in Wisconsin when her cat dragged a severed alligator head out of a lake.

>> Read more trending news

Wendy Wiesehuegel told WISN that she thought she had seen an alligator on Lake Keesus, but didn’t think about it again until she saw her 2-year-old cat, named Burnt Toast, dragging something up from the lake.

On Nov. 27, Burnt Toast dragged two items, which a neighbor initially believed were parts of a big fish, onto the shore, WITI reported.

“He was very proud of himself,” Wiesehuegel told WITI.

But when she looked closer, she realized that the cat hadn’t found a fish.

“I put them together,” Wiesehuegel told WISN. “And I’m like, that’s a gator. I’m calling the DNR.”

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources confirmed that the head the cat found appeared to belong to an alligator estimated to be approximately 3 feet long, WISN reported. DNR officials said the alligator was likely someone’s pet that had been dumped in the lake.

“I’m very concerned,” Wiesehuegel said to WISN. “Because we swim out there. Kids swim out there. We’ve got babies on this lake. So, we don’t want anything to happen. We’ve got lots of pets around here. We don’t want anything to happen to them.”

DNR officials told WITI that while Wisconsin does not have any laws preventing people from keeping exotic animals — such as alligator — as pets, the animals do pose risks and should never be released into the wild.

©2022 Cox Media Group