Police officers on patrol in Maine wound up apprehending some unusual suspects this week: a trio of escaped alpacas wandering loose through the streets. The three animals, reported by UPI on 3 November 2026, were rounded up by officers after being spotted on the loose, in a call-out that was considerably more photogenic than the average patrol.
According to UPI, the officers apprehended the three alpacas after finding them wandering in the area. No injuries were reported, and the animals were secured without incident — though the report does not say whether the alpacas cooperated fully, or whether they exercised their right to remain fluffy and silent.
Alpacas on the run
Alpacas are herd animals, and escaped alpacas tend to stay together, which explains why all three were found as a group. They are also famously unbothered by human attention, which makes them relatively easy to round up compared with, say, an escaped monkey or an alligator in a bagel shop — both of which also feature in this week’s odd news.
The Maine incident is the kind of story that local police departments love to share, because it is harmless, funny and highly photographable. An officer posing with an alpaca is a better community-relations image than almost anything else a patrol can produce.
A week for wandering animals
The alpacas join a remarkable week for animal escapees in the odd-news round-up: a fox on a Turkish soccer pitch, a mystery monkey on the loose in Tennessee, and an alligator in a North Carolina bagel shop. Taken together, they suggest that animals everywhere have decided this is their week to explore.
For the residents who spotted the alpacas, it was a morning surprise worth telling. For the officers, it was a reminder that police work sometimes involves herding livestock in the street. And for everyone else, it is another entry in the endless, delightful catalogue of animals who simply decided to go for a walk.
