{"id":3719,"date":"2025-11-24T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/24\/police-forces-rural-crime-teams-strangest-appeal-ever-revealed\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T12:00:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T12:00:24","slug":"police-forces-rural-crime-teams-strangest-appeal-ever-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/24\/police-forces-rural-crime-teams-strangest-appeal-ever-revealed\/","title":{"rendered":"Police force\u2019s rural crime team\u2019s \u2018strangest appeal ever\u2019\u00a0revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2025-11-24 12:00:22<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>Derbyshire Police\u2019s rural crime team has said its much-discussed crocodile hunt ended with the discovery the creature pulled from a local canal was a stuffed reptile rather than a live animal.<BR><br \/>\nThe case began after the force issued what it described as \u201cthe strangest appeal ever to grace our Facebook page\u201d, following a report from a member of the public who had spotted what appeared to be a crocodile dumped in the canal at Willington. <BR><br \/>\nThe force sparked headlines by saying it believed the animal had been placed there and asked for information on how it might have arrived at the site. <BR><br \/>\nThe situation developed in late-October as officers attempted to confirm what had been found and whether the incident involved any risk to people or wildlife.<BR><br \/>\nIn the force\u2019s appeal, the rural crime team said: \u201cWe\u2019re going to go out on a limb and guess this little guy isn\u2019t native to Derbyshire and as such, if you can offer any information about the crocodile\u2019s whereabouts now, or have knowledge of how it ended up at that site, please drop us a direct message.\u201d <BR><br \/>\nThe team added: \u201cFor clarification, although we cannot claim to be medical professionals, we are acutely aware the crocodile is deceased.\u201d <BR><br \/>\nTheir clarification followed comments from the public the animal appeared dead.<BR><br \/>\nAccording to Derbyshire Police, the post was widely shared and generated significant public attention. <BR><br \/>\nDays later, the rural crime team said it had received an explanation from a member of the public about the origins of the object recovered from the water. <BR><br \/>\nThe team wrote online: \u201cWe can now confirm the mystery has been solved!\u201d and reported that the individual explained the crocodile was a stuffed taxidermy model filled with hay, which had been inadvertently caught while they were fishing.<BR><br \/>\nThe police added: \u201cWhile it gave us all a bit of a surprise, it turns out this one was more fluff than fear!\u201d <BR><br \/>\nThe force said the explanation accounted for the appearance of the item and the circumstances in which it was found.<BR><br \/>\nThe force\u2019s Facebook followers also reacted to the update. <BR><br \/>\nOne commenter wrote: \u201cBrilliant! Really made me smile once it was revealed what it was! I can imagine it gave you all a bit of a shock.\u201d<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2025-11-24 12:00:22 Derbyshire Police\u2019s rural crime team has said its much-discussed crocodile hunt ended with the discovery the creature pulled from a local canal was a stuffed reptile rather than&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3721,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719\/revisions\/3721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}