A Walmart store in Florida got a surprise visitor: an alligator. A six-foot-long alligator crawled near the front doors of a Walmart in Florida, and the store stayed open.

A six-foot alligator wandered up to the Walmart store in Apopka, Florida shortly after midnight on Sunday, UPI reports.

Walmart employees locked the doors after the alligator was spotted near the front of the store.

However, the store remained open while the alligator meandered around the front of the store, ABC News reports.

Police arrived at the scene and blocked off the area. They tried to lure the animal away, and after about an hour, it wandered back into the woods behind the store.

The police called a trapper to handle the alligator, but it had already retreated to the woods before the trapper got there, ABC News reports

"Our main concern was keeping the people safe," Officer Steven Popp of the Apopka Police Department said.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission told ABC News that the alligator had been found and was being kept in a retention pond near Walmart.

Today the FWC issued a permit for the alligator to be caught, ABC News reports.

"He'll be put down, unfortunately," said Karen Parker, a spokeswoman for the FWC. "It looks like he has lost the fear of people, and we don't want to take the chance of him hurting anybody."