Featured Image Credit: euronews
Topics: News, World News, Australia, Animals
Kit Roberts
A giant croc called Elvis once forced zookeepers to flee his enclosure after lunging at one and stealing a lawnmower.
The keepers were left wondering how to recover the lawnmower from the infamous Elvis as he guarded his prize all morning. Check out the bizarre footage:
In case you were wondering, no, this is not a revelation that the King of Rock n' Roll is actually alive and living as a lawnmower kleptomaniac in an Australian zoo.
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Elvis, in this case, is the name of a grumpy 16ft, 1,100 pound saltwater crocodile whose keepers had to contend with him after he made off with the garden appliance.
Tim Faulkner, the operations manager at Australian Reptile Park, was one of three workers had tending to Elvis' enclosure back in 2011 when he heard keeper Billy Collett cry out.
He looked and saw that the enclosure's occupant, Elvis, was lunging out of his lagoon at Collett.
Fortunately, Collett was able to fend off Elvis using the lawnmower, but the irate croc managed to fang hold of the appliance.
"Before we knew it, the croc had the mower above his head," Faulkner told NBC. "He got his jaws around the top of the mower and picked it up and took it underwater with him."
A video shows someone shouting 'let it go' repeatedly, before Collett lets Elvis take the lawnmower.
The keepers hurried out of the enclosure, while Elvis hunkered down in his pool and guarded his new toy.
Eventually however, Faulkner came to the realisation that they would have to retrieve the lawnmower, one way or another.
So, once again they got into Elvis' enclosure.
Collett had the unenviable task of luring Elvis to the other end of the enclosure, which he accomplished by waving kangaroo meat, enticing the croc to come over.
This gave Faulkner the chance he needed to jump into Elvis' pool and grab the lawnmower.
But that wasn't it. Faulkner also had to go under the water to retrieve a number of Elvis' teeth which had become dislodged.
You might question the wisdom of rooting around at the bottom of a pool belonging to an enormous crocodile, but Faulkner explained that they have to collect the teeth or they can clog the filtration system.
He added: "They're a nice souvenir."
Elvis was captured in Darwin in Northern Australia after he was reported to have attacked fishing boats.
He had long been difficult for staff to contend with, having lunged at them a number of times before the lawnmower incident.
One thing is for sure though...
Everybody in the whole cell block, was dancing to the jailhouse croc.