Hunter Got His Deer. Second Animal Was a Surprise

A Minnesota man who was tracking a large buck on the opening weekend of deer hunting season encountered a second animal he never expected—a 3-foot alligator, per the AP. Cory Klocek was hunting Saturday on farmland in East Bethel when he took down with a shotgun what he described on Facebook as a “beautiful 10-point buck,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Right about that time he came around a pond and spotted the alligator. “No clue how it got there, or why,” Klocek wrote. “I’m guessing someone had it as a pet and released it when it got too big.”

Klocek, 35, contacted a conservation officer with the state Department of Natural Resources and got the go-ahead to shoot the alligator as well. He retrieved a .22-caliber handgun and headed back to the pond. “Only in 2020 can you go out... for deer gun season opener in Minnesota and shoot an alligator," Klocek said Monday in an interview. "I’m still at a loss of words.” Department of Natural Resources spokesman Joe Albert confirmed Klocek got the green light from his agency to take out the reptile because it has “no special protection.”

(More strange stuff stories.)