Earlier this year in the Australian city of Darwin, a 7-foot crocodile found its way into a backyard swimming pool. Mystery surrounds how the freshwater croc, dubbed "Sammy Fetchen," got into the fully fenced-off pool.
Resident Matt Lynch said he thought someone had put a fake crocodile in his pool. "Then we poked it with a pole," Lynch told NewsCore. "And it was real."
Another resident reported two girls swam in the pool at 4 a.m., and didn't think the crocodile was in there then, so it must have snuck in between 4 and 9 a.m.
Crocodile catcher Joey Buckerfield said the reptile most likely burrowed under the fence because his scales were damaged.
A few thousand miles away in New Port Richey, Fla., a huge hole in the screened patio made it clear how a 10-foot alligator got into Kenneth Donovan's pool. Donovan lives next to a lake and told his new-to-Florida neighbors that it's not uncommon to see a gator, yet he was not expecting the reptilian visitor in his pool when he came home for lunch one Tuesday. His barking beagle tipped him off that something was amiss, and when Donovan discovered the gator, he called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which sent alligator trapper Candy Moniz to get the gator out of the pool.
Before Moniz snagged the gator, it managed to bite a chunk off of the pool's coping. The gator had to be put down under Florida's nuisance policy. Moniz will sell the meat and pelt.
