Esbee, a.k.a. Life in Forsyth, shares an email from Wake Forest News Service that warns folks about a two foot alligator in Lake Katherine at Reynolda Gardens.  The university police ask that you stay away from the gator and if you do see it to call them and report its exact location. 

To heck with that.  Daddy needs a new pair of shoes so I think it’s time to go hunting. 

But no, it seems I’m too late.  The butler did it (from the W-S Journal):

Van Walls, a butler
at Graylyn International Conference Center, across from Reynolda House,
found the alligator on the center’s driveway Sunday afternoon. He
spotted it after a woman came in saying she had just seen it crossing
Reynolda Road.

“It’s the only guest I ever had hiss at me before,” Walls said.

Walls threw his dress coat over the nearly 2-foot-long alligator before grabbing it by the back of the neck and tail.

Then he put it in a box and took it home.

He started calling such places as the N.C. Zoo near Asheboro in search of someone to take the critter…

Meanwhile, Wake
Forest University police had been on the lookout for the alligator
since Friday, after officers verified a reported sighting and spotted
it themselves.

It was seen soaking up some sun on a log in a pond on the grounds of Reynolda House.

Walls didn’t know
that authorities were looking for the alligator until a supervisor told
him yesterday that university officials sent a campuswide e-mail out
about the search for the alligator.

Walls then told campus police that he had the alligator.

Police alerted Matt
Craven, a local wildlife rehabilitator, who had been trying to catch
the alligator. Craven, who specializes in rescuing and moving reptiles,
went to Walls’ house last night and got the alligator, which appeared
to be healthy.

He then went back to
the Wake Forest campus to show the alligator to university police
before taking it to his home in Mocksville.

Man this story has everything.  It’s wild enough that there’s an alligator strolling across Reynolda but who knew that we still have butlers around?  And then the dude catches the gator and takes it home, but doesn’t know that Mocksville’s very own croc hunter is out looking for it so the school ends up sending out an alert warning people to look out for the man-eater. Well, maybe that’s a stretch.  Take a look at the Journal’s pic (taken by Walt Unks) of the critter and decide if you think it a man eater or an ankle biter: