THIBODAUX, La. — It sounds like the lead-in to a bad joke -- so why did a man with an alligator draped over his shoulder cross the road?
The only person who knows is the Louisiana resident toting the reptile.
In a bizarre post to Facebook on June 29, Stevie Guin was driving back to work when he captured video of the man crossing the street gingerly -- he was only wearing one shoe -- on Canal Boulevard in Thibodaux, WWL-TV reported.
Thibodaux man walking down street carrying alligator goes viral https://t.co/yVIk2QCOI4
— WWL-TV (@WWLTV) June 30, 2023
“I started fumbling for my phone and I was like, ‘I have to capture this because no one is going to believe that I just saw this walking across on Canal,’” Guin told the television station. “Just a random area for this to happen.”
“Welcome to Thibodaux,” Guin wrote on Facebook.
Guin told WWL that he knew the one-shoe resident was in pain.
“I know the blacktop can get hot right around noon and you could see he was kind of like limping through, stepping on the hot ground and the rocks and everything,” Guin told the television station.
Guin said he believes the man may have caught the alligator from Bayou Lafourche, which was nearby.
“A little bit down the way there was a police officer and I believe animal control like stopped and picked up the alligator because you can’t really do that,” Guin told WWL.
Officials from Louisiana’s wildlife enforcement agency said they were aware of the video, WALB-TV reported. They added that the Thibodaux Police Department was handling the case.
“It looked like a 4- or 5-foot alligator on his shoulder,” Thibodaux resident Karen Authement told WWL. “Not something you see every day, but I guess in this part of town it could happen.”
