![\"Nile](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/QAIEOAX4CRFCZHEBGYSSDWGQ6M.jpg\"\/)
Hampton Township Police Officer Brett Whittman stands with a juvenile Nile crocodile he and Lt. Todd Becker recovered from a woman’s yard the afternoon of Sept. 23, 2025.Cole Waterman<\/p>\nBAY COUNTY, MI \u2014 Police arrested an unusual trespasser they caught lazily sunbathing in a mid-Michigan yard. <\/p>\n
Thankfully, the four-legged, scale-covered encroacher didn\u2019t resist by biting the officers with its extended jaws or try spinning them in one of its species\u2019 infamous death rolls.<\/p>\n
The suspect, a juvenile Nile crocodile, is no longer in police custody, having been released to a local zoo. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn my 29 years of service, I\u2019ve never had a call like this before,\u201d said Hampton Township Public Safety Lt. Todd Becker.<\/p>\n
About 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 23, Becker and Officer Brett Whitman responded to a residence in the 800 block of West Hampton Road after a woman resident called 911 to report some kind of crocodilian in her yard, lazing under a crab apple tree.<\/p>\n
Becker and Whittman spotted the approximately 3-foot-long reptile lying near a chain link fence. <\/p>\n
Hampton Township Police Officer Brett Whittman stands with a juvenile Nile crocodile he and Lt. Todd Becker recovered from a woman’s yard the afternoon of Sept. 23, 2025.Cole Waterman<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could see it plain as day, even from pretty far away,\u201d Becker said. \u201cIt was just lying there in the nice, fresh-cut grass. I thought it was a joke at first, because it wasn\u2019t moving or nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
After looking over their shoulders to ensure they weren\u2019t the butt of some practical joke, the officers approached the animal and realized it was alive. The homeowner gave the officers a plastic tote, with which they corralled the croc.<\/p>\n
\u201cTill then, it hadn\u2019t moved, but then it started banging on the sides,\u201d Becker said. <\/p>\n
With the animal wrangled, the officers had to figure out what to do with it. Bay County Central Dispatch employees manned the phones and contacted staff at the Wilderness Trails Zoo<\/a>, 11721 Gera Road in Saginaw County\u2019s Birch Run Township, who were willing to accept the croc.<\/p>\n Jeremiah Tietz, the zoo\u2019s director, said the animal appears to belong to the Nile crocodile, or Crocodylus niloticus, species.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no idea how a private owner would even get ahold of something like this,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not something you normally see with private owners, as they do get extremely large and mean.\u201d<\/p>\n An adult Nile crocodile can grow to about 16 feet long, Tietz said. The species is the largest crocodilian in Africa and second largest in the world, behind only the saltwater crocodile. <\/p>\n Becker added no one has come forward to claim ownership of the croc. He further noted Hampton Township has an ordinance<\/a> prohibiting private ownership of exotic animals such as crocs. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re assuming it got too big for somebody,\u201d Becker said. \u201cWho knows how long ago they let it go?\u201d<\/p>\n The croc was in rough shape and is now receiving care at the zoo, Tietz said. Once the croc is stabilized and healthy, Heitz plans to introduce it to another Nile croc of similar size, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cCrocs are a bit more aggressive than alligators, so we may have to do protected introductions to make sure they don\u2019t hurt each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Anyone with information on how the crocodile ended up in Hampton Township can call police at 989-892-0571.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAY COUNTY, MI \u2014 Police arrested an unusual trespasser they caught lazily sunbathing in a mid-Michigan yard. Thankfully,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":254217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-254216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115266363328330983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}