Daily Reptile News

Missing boa found when hit by car

Police in Illinois said a 9-foot boa constrictor missing since August was found when a motorist ran over the reptile.

Maroa police officer Bill Koonce said police received a call at about 1:15 p.m. Tuesday about a snake being run over by a car near Maroa-Forsyth High School, The Decatur Journal reported Thursday.

Koonce said the snake was captured about a half hour after the report and turned over to Macon County Animal Control, which took the snake to a veterinarian on the request of its owner.

The officer said the snake did not appear to be seriously injured.

“I’m not a vet, and I’m not a snake expert, but she was moving just fine,” Koonce said.

Police said it was not clear whether the snake, which was reported missing Aug. 31, escaped or was stolen.

Owner of alligator identified, could face charges

A 3-foot alligator captured outside a Buffalo Grove home Tuesday could soon find itself getting the celebrity treatment at a theme park dedicated to its kind.

Representatives from Gatorland, an Orlando, Fla. attraction known as the “Alligator Capital of the World,” offered Thursday to take the gator, nicknamed Chewy by Buffalo Grove police, and have him spend the rest of his life there.

However, they have not yet been able to reach the herpetologist housing him, said Tim Williams, Gatorland’s Dean of Gator Wrestling and Director of Media Productions.

Of the park’s 1,500 alligators, Chewy would be the only one from Chicago, which is enough to land him a spot on their “Celebrity Row,” Williams said.

“We don’t get too many Chicago resident gators,” Williams said. “I think it would be great if we could go, ‘Yeah, he was raised all the way up in Chicago, but it was too chilly for him’.”

Other residents of Gatorland’s Celebrity Row include rare white alligators with blue eyes, a camera-friendly gator named “Pops” who has been featured in numerous TV shows and documentaries, and a Florida gator named “Chester” who was part of a high-profile case where he “ate a few dogs” and had his life spared after Gatorland got involved, Williams said.

Gatorland would pay for Chewy to be flown to Orlando in a plywood crate with air holes, and he’d ride in the cargo area of the plane with other caged pets, Williams said. The 110-acre theme park has plenty of room for him.

“If I die and am reincarnated as a gator, this is where I’d want to be. People feed you, wash your house, let you go into the mating marsh … it’s the life,” he said with a laugh.

Police announced Thursday they had located Chewy’s owner, who now could face criminal charges for illegally owning the 20-pound reptile, village police said Thursday.

The owner, whose name has not yet been released, lives near the 600 block of Pinehurst Lane, where the alligator was captured. Police said he housed he reptile in a large enclosure that included a sunken pond with waterfalls. The pond was surrounded by a brick wall and fencing.

The owner told officers he has had the alligator for three years and was unsure how long it had been out of the enclosure before its capture Tuesday night.

Police are working with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to determine if any criminal complaints will be filed, according to a news release Thursday. Under the Illinois Dangerous Animals Act, owning an alligator is a Class C misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,500.

The alligator now is with a herpetologist who offered to care for the animal after it initially was taken in by Arlington Heights-based ABC Humane Wildlife Rescue and Relocation.

Malaysian authorities save hundreds of lizards

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian wildlife authorities said Wednesday they had seized 422 clouded monitor lizards being smuggled out of the country and destined for cooking pots in Asia.

Abdul Razak Majid, wildlife and national parks chief in southern Johor state, said two men were arrested on September 20 when their lorry was stopped following a tip-off, leading to the discovery of the lizards.

“The monitor lizards, which we believe were captured in jungles in the area, were wrapped in nets and placed in fruit crates,” he told AFP.

“Investigations show that the animals were being smuggled out of the country and would be sold for their meat which is considered a delicacy in some neighbouring countries and also for making medicine,” he added.

Abdul Razak said that once investigations were completed, the lizards would be released into the wild in the state’s national parks.

A Malaysian court earlier this month sentenced Malaysian wildlife trafficker Anson Wong to six months in jail for trying to smuggle 95 endangered boa constrictors to neighbouring Indonesia.

Activists have criticised the lenient sentence and authorities have promised to seek a tougher punishment.

Despite efforts by Southeast Asian authorities to crack down on illegal smuggling and wildlife trafficking, the practice still persists in the region, posing a threat to a number of species, activists say.

The Star newspaper reported this week that Malaysia’s wildlife department will undergo a shake-up to remove officers collaborating with wildlife traders.

Rise in snake bites inspires student venom study

A rise in serious cases involving rattlesnakes in Cochise County led three UA students to study just how lethal one snake’s venom is.

As Part of their senior year project at the College of Pharmacy, students Kelvin Richards and Ryan Curtis teamed up with Daniel Massey, Pharmacy resident at University Medical Center. By Studying the Mohave rattlesnake, the most common species in Cochise County, and comparing it with Pima County’s they will determine if those Mohave rattlesnakes venom is becoming increasingly potent.

The research began in July, and is a project Massey has wanted to do for three years. “It’s a personal passion of my own,” Massey said. “I’ve been collecting snakes… I have pictures since I was 10 years old with rattlesnakes.” He met the students through the Arizona Poison and Drug Control Information Center, which is supporting the collaborative research.

The venom of 19 Mohave rattlesnakes have been collected by a third party which provides them with the GPS location of the animals in order to make sure the snakes are from the area they are examining.

The team is transforming the venom samples into powder before shipping it to Texas A&’M University and Spain, where other phases of the study will be conducted.

The increasing number of rattlesnake encounters prompted the study.

These encounters were resulting in longer hospital stays and worse lab out comes, according to Richards.

In some cases, “it took two or three times as long to stabilize the patient” than it did in the past, Richards said.

They believe a change in the Mohave species’ venom to be the culprit behind the increase in severe cases.

In clinical cases the species of snake can’t really be verified to be match to the Mohave or not, although the team believes it so, because of its common aspect.

“Nobody comes in with a snake, nobody comes in with a pitcher, so you don’t know,” Massey said.

If it turns out the venom has actually intensified; they hope to educate the population on the snake’s graver risks. Despite the increase in danger, the treatment at this point would still be the same.

The study should be completed by next July, close to when Massey’s resident project is due. On the research’s complexity and depth for a senior project, Curtis said

“If we’re gonna spend time doing our senior project … we might as well try to do something that’s worth it.”

The team has plans to publish their results, along with the other collaborators.

“These guys had a very big interest in not doing something simple, but taking it to the next level. And doing something much more complex, with some potential good outcomes to come from this,” said Keith Boesen, managing director of the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center, and advisor to the students.

According to him, Arizona has by far the highest rates of rattlesnake envenomations in the country per capita. Per year, around 400 rattlesnakes bites are accounted for in the state, although there have only been two deaths in the last 10 years.

A snake in the courthouse? Believe it

Deputy Gregory Wood was looking forward to a mundane Monday morning manning the metal detector at the Haywood County courthouse when a woman came in with some strange news: a snake had taken up residence in the elevator of the parking deck.

Needless to say, when the woman saw the big, black snake curled up in the corner, she opted to take the stairs. Wood said he didn’t doubt her tale for a second.

“We get strange things around here all the time,” he said.

So Wood, along with fellow Deputy Russell Bryson, headed out to see for themselves. They hit the call button for the elevator, and when the doors opened, there it was — a big, black snake nearly four feet long.

They realized right away the snake didn’t get in there on its own.

“It couldn’t have crawled in there before the doors closed shut on it,” Bryson said.

But first things first.

“I knew I needed to get it off the elevator,” Wood said. He pulled his expandable baton from his holster and quickly pinned down the snake’s head to immobilize it. With his other hand, Wood grabbed the snake by the neck so it couldn’t turn around and bite him.

Wood paused briefly to pose while Bryson took a picture on his cell phone, and then the two released the poor critter into the grass.

Once back inside, they began reviewing surveillance footage of the parking deck. At 10:20 a.m. — about 10 minutes before the woman reported it — a man is seen walking up to the elevator and putting the snake inside. It’s possible someone rode on the elevator with the snake if they were talking on their phone or otherwise distracted, Wood said.

“We are trying to figure out if there is anything we can charge him with,” Wood said of the man. They consulted with a District Court judge to figure out what charge might be applicable. The next step would be identifying him.

Before putting the snake on the elevator, the man was walking around with it on the grounds outside the historic courthouse. Tax Collector David Francis, who works in the building, confronted the man and asked him to get rid of the snake.

Man bitten by snake at swap meet

A worker at a snake shop inside a Las Vegas swap meet said he suffered bruising when he was bitten by a 12-foot Burmese python.

Ming Wong, 22, said he was trying to get the snake out of its cage for a customer Saturday at the Fantastic Indoor Swap Meet’s Snake Shop when the large reptile clamped its jaws onto his arm and wrapped its body around the limb, the Las Vegas Sun reported Tuesday.

Wong, who was back at work Saturday, said the customer and a manager pried the reptile from his arm. He said he suffered only minor bruising.

“It was more of a shock than anything,” Wong said. “It’s not every day you get bit by a 12-foot snake. It made my day exciting.”

Randy McDowell, owner of the Snake Shop, said workers followed protocol during the incident. He said Wong and the snake will be separated for 30 days in accordance with the shop’s policy.

Mexico Hurricane crocodile escape contained

Hundreds of crocodiles reported to have escaped from a breeding centre in Mexico during Hurricane Karl are still contained in a nature reserve, Mexico’s environment agency has said.

The reptiles were reported to have swam away after their outdoor enclosure in Veracruz state was flooded.

But officials said only some had got out of their cages, and they had remained inside a nature reserve.

The crocodiles posed no threat to the public, they said.

“It seems there are reports that they are wandering free, that they are walking in the streets, but we have to say that that is not true,” said Manuel Molina of the Mexican environment agency, Semarnat.

The escaped animals were contained in a lake inside the nature reserve surrounding the breeding centre, and could not get out, he said.

The governor of Veracruz state, Fidel Herrera, had earlier said more than 280 crocodiles had escaped during the floods.

Local people had been warned not to approach or try to catch the animals.

The Morelet’s crocodiles – an endangered species found in Mexico and Central America – were being bred for conservation purposes at El Colibri wildlife reserve, 40km (25 miles) from the port of Veracruz.

Tens of thousands of people in Veracruz state have been left homeless by floods caused by Hurricane Karl, and at least 12 people have been killed.

The region was already suffering from one of its worst rainy seasons on record when the hurricane struck.

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