An Ommen resident had a very unexpected visitor on Wednesday afternoon. An elephant wandered into his garden and started eating his pear tree. The man called the police, and after convincing them that he was not joking, police officers responded to the scene.

"On the way to the address - in the outskirts of Ommen - we wondered how in heavens name we were supposed to catch an elephant. This was a first for us", the Ommen police said on Facebook.

At the scene the police found the startled residents, and huge piles of poop in the driveway, but no elephant. The residents told them that the beast's owner came to collect it and left on a forest path. "After following this forest path several hundred meters, we indeed found the elephant, including its owner."

The owner turned out to be a circus employee, who walked the elephant in the forest several times a day. During an inattentive moment, the elephant saw its chance to snack on a pear tree and wandered off. The owner felt horrible about what happened and returned to the Ommen resident with the officers, where he cleaned up the poop and financially compensated the residents for the damages, the police said.

"To top it all off, we as police were allowed to take a picture fo the 'culprit'. We immediately took advantage of this, if only to prevent no one believing us."