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FERRIDAY, La. — Ferriday Police Chief Sam King said he’d never encountered an alligator on the job as big as the one seen in the middle of E.E. Wallace Boulevard on Monday morning.

“It appears his ride left him stranded,” King said in a social media post about the 11-foot alligator that somehow made its way onto the highway.

It took a few men from the Ferriday police and street departments to haul the alligator off of the roadway, King said.

“We have gotten calls at the police station about a baby one in the ditch, but this is my first time to encounter one that size,” he said.

The alligator was already deceased of unknown causes when found, King added.

“We contacted the game warden at Louisiana Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, but they don’t remove dead alligators,” he said. “It didn’t have any tag and didn’t appear to have been run over. It’s possible it fell out of the back of a truck belonging to someone who didn’t obtain it properly but there’s no way to know that for sure. We’re checking cameras in the area to see if we can find the individual if indeed that is the case.”

King said a citizen offered to take the alligator off of the street department’s hands.