Daily Reptile News

IT’S ALL ABOUT COMMUNITY

AND FAMILY

AND AWESOMENESS!!!

Visit DRN on Youtube

‹ ›

Brockton firefighter won’t forget finding alligator on his way to work

BROCKTON —

Why did the alligator cross the road?

Firefighter Scott Hurst says he doesn’t know, but won’t forget seeing the 3-foot, sand-colored reptile, wearing a dark brown collar, hustling across Clifton Avenue near Copeland Street at 7 a.m. Sunday.

The alligator appeared headed for a city street-drain, perhaps for a new life as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Gator.

And now, Hurst’s fellow firefighters have dubbed him “Gator.”

Hurst, 47, a city firefighter for 15 years, picked up the alligator by its collar and tail.

No one was around as it was early on a Sunday morning.

He used a bungee cord to tie the reptile in the back of his pickup truck, then drove to fire station Station 7 and summoned animal control.

Supervisor Tom DeChellis said the alligator was resting Monday inside an animal carrier while officers worked to place it with a wildlife specialist.

The alligator is believed to be an escaped or abandoned pet, but DeChellis said he did not expect it to be claimed. People who want to own alligators in Massachusetts must obtain a permit from MassWildlife after a rigorous screening in which they must prove they are using them in education and research.

So authorities suspect this alligator-on-the-lam was undocumented.

Animal control has dealt with alligators before in Brockton; they are usually left behind by people moving out of apartments or houses. One several years ago was spotted swimming at Waldo Pond in D.W. Field Park.

“They are not usually roaming the streets,” said DeChellis.

Gators have caused a stir in Middleboro and elsewhere in the region.

In late July, a 2-foot baby alligator was pulled from the Nemasket River in Middleboro.

In 2005, a 52-inch alligator was lured from Stump Pond, also in Middleboro.

In 2004, a 6-foot alligator walked out of a Middleboro South Main Street apartment that was on fire.

Alligator sightings were also reported at Island Grove in Abington in 2005.

Hurst said the alligator he found, which at first he thought was an iguana, was “hissing and his jaws were going up and down” when Hurst apprehended it as the reptile scampered across the road.

Hurst said his children, a 16-year-old and 9-year-old triplets, later asked if they could keep the alligator as a pet, but Hurst vetoed the idea.

“He was a year-old and he was already 3 feet long,” said Hurst. “Apparently they grow to 8 to 10 feet in captivity and 15 feet otherwise. It all depends on how much you feed them, and apparently this one was well-fed.”

The animal officers did not know if the alligator is male or female.

Hurst called it “just another morning in Brockton.”

“I’ve had coyotes and wild turkeys, but never an alligator,” said Hurst.

Ban on buying pythons takes effect

TALLAHASSEE — Starting Monday, people are baned from buying a python in Florida.

The state’s new rules classify several species of pythons, including the Burmese python, as a conditional species.

The green anaconda and the nile monitor lizard have also been reclassified. That means it is illegal to buy or own one.

However, people who already owned a python before the law took effect Monday can keep them for the rest of the animal’s life, provided they have the proper license.

Another ‘gator spotted along Chicago River

CHICAGO (AP) – The hunt is on after another alligator was spotted along the Chicago River.

On Aug. 6, a 2 1/2-foot-long gator was captured along the river on Chicago’s North Side. Experts say it appeared to have been a pet that was released in the area.

On Sunday, Chicagoan Sararose Krenger and her family spotted a 3 to 5-foot alligator basking in the sun while they were boating on the North Branch of the river. Krenger says the gator was watching some ducks swim by.

The family called police. Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Anne Dwyer says 1 of the officers saw the alligator but it slipped away before animal control officials arrived.

Dwyer says an alligator hunter will be setting traps to capture the reptile.

Big snake sightings in Pike Co.

It might not have the historical prowess of, say, the Loch Ness Monster, but an unusual creature spotted along U.S. 54 in Pike County has been getting plenty of attention.

Two vehicles going in different directions on the highway near New Hartford stopped recently for a 15-foot snake about 4:30 a.m., Sheriff Paul Petty said.

Both drivers confused it for a log at first, but before anyone could get out to move it, it slithered away. Once it was out of the way, the drivers rolled their windows down and spoke to one another in traffic.

The motorists told authorities the snake was no less than 15 feet long, Petty said, and took up the entire width of the highway.

Since then, there have been no other sightings and no one has come forward indicating a snake of that size escaped from a home.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of this,” Petty said. “You’d think a snake of that size would have been seen prior but we’ve never had a report. Generally speaking, snakes of that size are reared in captivity first.”

The snake matched the description of a boa constrictor.

The sheriff’s department believes it eats no more than once a month and encourages those in the area to keep a close watch on pets and small animals.

In the August heat, snakes are more attracted to cooler locations such as sheds or pole barns common in rural communities as well as residential basements. People in the area should also keep an eye out in trees and shrubs.

Couple return from honeymoon to find python in bathroom

Tim and Rebecca Booker-Baxter first found a note left on their doormat asking if anyone had seen a missing snake.

The pet had escaped from a neighbour’s house and got into the newlyweds’ terraced home via their upstairs toilet.

By the time they got back from their holiday in the US, tired from a 30-hour journey, the snake had become dehydrated and bad-tempered.

Mrs Booker-Baxter, 27, said: “We found this note that had been put through the door, which said there was a large snake missing, but it was harmless and friendly.

“Jokingly we had a look around the house to see if we could see it, not actually thinking it would be there. Then Tim went upstairs to go to the bathroom and he just said ‘there’s a really big snake in here’.”

She didn’t believe her husband, 32, but went upstairs to take a look for herself at their home in Eastney, Hants.

She said: “There, wrapped around the taps, was this massive snake. The toilet was dry and had marks on it where the snake had obviously used it to get in.”

Mrs Booker-Baxter contacted her neighbour who, with a lot of coaxing, managed to get the python safely into a box and take it back to its real home.

It’s not the first time she has had a close encounter with a snake.

“About two years ago I found a snake skin in the house, but no snake. I knocked on a few doors and my neighbour – the same one – had lost a corn snake,” she said. “I dined out on that story for years, and I’ll do the same with this one.”

Alligator surfaces beneath a car in New York

New York: Tales of reptiles in the sewers have long been part of New York City lore, though they have been largely discounted as urban legend.

But here is the true story of a two-foot-long creature that Joyce Hackett came across in Queens on Sunday afternoon. She was on her way to a store that sells salvaged building materials when she missed her turn for Astoria Boulevard. So she turned around. She pulled up to the intersection of Newtown Avenue and 29th Street when she noticed a police officer and a small crowd of people clustered around a blue car.

She parked her car and got out to see what all the fuss was about. People were pointing under the car and taking pictures. That is when she saw it.

“It was about two feet long,” Ms. Hackett said. “It was like the urban legend washed up from the sewer and says, ‘What the heck am I doing here?’ and hides under a Datsun.”

Ms. Hackett quickly, carefully, slung her iPhone to ground level and snapped a shot, she said. A police officer on the scene warned her that maybe she should not do that.

But angling for a better shot, she stuck her phone down a bit further.

“Be careful!” the officer said, with a bit more urgency.

Then the officer snuck a peek at the pictures on Ms. Hackett’s iPhone and asked her to e-mail them to her.

Ms. Hackett said the officer then made a call asking for some help to wrangle the critter.

The Police Department’s emergency service unit arrived and used a pole to hook and cage the animal and take it to the local precinct station house, said James Duffy, a police spokesman. The police also called Animal Care and Control of New York City to come get the animal.

“We’re not sure if it’s an alligator or a crocodile because we’re not zoologists,” Officer Duffy said. “No one knows where it came from, if it came from the sewer or not.” He called the creature “tiny and harmless.”

“No one had to come and wrestle with it,” he said. “It’s not big enough to eat a dog — maybe a mouse.”

Later on Sunday, Richard Gentles, a spokesman for Animal Care and Control, said the animal was indeed an alligator. Where it came from is unknown. And exactly where it would end up is unclear, but Mr. Gentles said it would most likely go to a licensed rehabilitator or reptile sanctuary. On average, he said, his agency rescues two to four alligators, crocodiles or caimans (a related reptile) in the city every year.

What often happens is that someone brings a small alligator or crocodile north from its natural habitat down south — usually in Florida — to keep as a pet, then dumps it in a pond when it gets too big, said David Quinn, a nuisance wildlife control operator for DQ Pest Control.

In 2006, authorities captured a 15-inch alligator on the grounds of an apartment complex in Brooklyn. And in 2001, a two-foot-long spectacled caiman was discovered living in a lake in Central Park. A reptile hunter was dispatched from Florida, and the caiman was plucked from the water and taken to a zoo.

It is illegal to keep alligators, crocodiles or caimans in homes in New York City. Most of the reptiles that are illegally kept in New York City apartments are certain kinds of snakes, Mr. Quinn said, though every now and then someone decides a baby alligator is cute enough to take home.

Anyone who would do that, he said, is a “real screwball.”