LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) %u2013 Maybe it was spring fever that made a 9-foot, 20-year-old alligator make its getaway in south Arkansas.
The male American alligator was found missing on Tuesday afternoon at the Gov. Mike Huckabee Delta Rivers Nature Center in Pine Bluff, about 45 miles south of Little Rock.
"We think he crawled up on a chain link fence, got his weight on it and pushed it down enough to get over it," Arkansas Game and Fish Commission spokesman Keith Stephens said in an interview. "He got to the next fence and was able to get under a gate."
The nature center sits near the Arkansas River and on the edge of swamps and bayous. The alligator was in an outdoor display near the back of the nature center's main building.
Stephens said he believes the alligator is now in the nearby swamps mingling with other alligators that live in the water.
