Llama on the loose takes a van home

A llama on the loose Wednesday afternoon near Athens caused quite a stir even after it was corralled to the dumpster area of a burger joint and reclaimed by its rightful owner.

It was about 4 p.m. when the call came in about “a baby camel running loose” near Epps Bridge Road, the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement it posted on Facebook.

“Our deputies are not trained in South American camel identification, but they quickly determined that the animal in question was actually a llama,” Chief Deputy Lee Weems wrote in the post. “Deputies, with the assistance of — and I kid you not— several llama experts who just happened to be traveling on Epps Bridge Road at that exact moment, managed to corral the llama in the dumpster area behind the Cook Out.”

Weems thanked Cook Out for providing a bag of carrots used to lure the llama into the dumpster area.

A county commissioner identified the llama’s owner. The owner’s son came to Cook Out in a van to pick up the llama and take it back home.

“We do not know at this time whether it just wanted to go for a stroll or if it was concerned about the weather forecast this weekend and was attempting to buy bread and milk. I asked, but it refused to answer questions,” Weems wrote in the post. “Perhaps this is because I don't speak Spanish nor any of the native Peruvian languages.”

This story was originally published January 4, 2017 at 7:38 PM with the headline "Llama on the loose takes a van home."