LANCASTER, Calif. -- A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was suspicious. When he heard two women were spotted near a Lancaster, Calif., intersection, and one of them was holding an alligator, he didn't buy it.
"I'm thinking, `Yeah, an alligator. OK,'" Deputy Michael Rust told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday (http://lat.ms/13IVx4U). "Maybe an iguana, but an alligator?"
A 911 operator agreed. "Could it have been a lizard?" the operator tells a woman reporting "a couple girls carrying an alligator" on a recording released by the Sheriff's Department.
Rust investigated the report Tuesday morning and found not just a 4-foot alligator, but a kangaroo and monkey too, all inside the same van.
The women explained that the menagerie is part of the "Zoo to You" program in Paso Robles that introduces kids to animals.