Daily Reptile News

Exotic Animals Rescued from Milwaukee Home

MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee firefighters had an unusual assignment on the city’s south side Wednesday afternoon. They were called upon to carry large metal containers from a 17th Street home filled with a bizarre menagerie.

“We seen snakes, anacondas, alligators, spiders, dead rats, all kinds of weird animals,” said neighbor Sandra Sendejo after surveying the scene for much of the afternoon.

The discovery was made when police and DNR officials executed a search warrant at the home just north of Morgan Avenue as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. They found exotic reptiles in the 17th Street home and another home on 13th Street, south of Lincoln.

“Those metal containers contained anaconda snakes,” said Lieutenant Paul Felician of Milwaukee Police as he pointed to a truck loaded with the containers. “There were at least five of them that we removed. They were ranging in size from twenty to thirty feet in length and probably several hundred pounds.”

Needless to say, neighbors weren’t thrilled by the news that giant constrictors inhabited their neighborhood.

“That’s scary,” said Carmen Cerda as she watched firefighters come and go. “We do have a lot of children in the neighborhood.”

Authorities didn’t say how many creatures were confiscated, nor was there any immediate word on the specifics of the ongoing criminal investigation that resulted in the find.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Design $10,000 Cufflinks For a Cause!

In case you’re searching for the Father’s Day gift to end all Father’s Day gifts: Renaissance power couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have unveiled their first men’s design for venerable British jewelry house Asprey. As part of jeweler’s limited-edition Protector collection, Angelina and Brad have designed a pair of diamond cufflinks, available at Asprey stores now. Sharing the same serpent-inspired motif as the rest of the collection (snakes were a symbolic guardian talisman during the actress’s first pregnancy), the 18k white gold cufflinks are encrusted with elegant black diamonds and punctuated with emerald snake eyes. As much a philanthropic gift as a fashion statement, the cufflinks retail for a cool $10,000, with 100% of net proceeds going to the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict (EPCC), a charitable organization co-founded by Jolie. The collection also includes a jewelled ring and bracelets, as well as children’s items like a tooth box and silver egg cup. For more info on Angelina and Brad’s Protector collection, visit asprey.com.

Python Victim’s Mom Declared Indigent

BUSHNELL — Frustrations are mounting in the case against a Sumter County mom and her boyfriend who prosecutors say are to blame after a pet python killed a 2-year-old girl.

One of the defense attorneys said they have not been able to really get the case moving forward because Jaren Hare, the toddler’s mother, could not come up with the money for her legal fees.

Ten months after a pet python slithered out of its aquarium, into Shaiunna Hare’s crib and strangled her, attorneys said the defense has not taken testimony from a single witness.

“I would certainly like to see the case get moving because a delay in the case only goes to a defendant’s benefit,” said Prosecutor Pete Magrino. “It’s never beneficial to the state.”

Jaren Hare’s attorney Paul Militello said a judge’s ruling declaring her indigent will free up some money to get the ball rolling.

“I think it’s frustrating for the prosecution as well as the defense,” Militello said. “We’ve been eager to move forward and question witnesses to see what they say or don’t say, and whether or not they are going to confirm what the prosecution’s theory of the case is.”

While little has happened in the criminal case in the last 10 months, reptile owners said it’s extremely frustrating that the state has launched a large scale crackdown on reptiles.

“The last 10 months you have had the python hunt occur twice,” said Robert Keszey, who co-owns the Glades Herp Farm. “You’ve had this proposed ban on snakes occur at a federal level and a state level. At the federal level, they threw it out, but now they are rewording it and trying to fight that again. At the state level, it has already passed as a bill, so now it just has to be signed into law by Governor Crist.”

Those in the reptile industry are still trying to fight the ban and worry it will lead people to release more snakes into the wild, which they said is bad for everyone.

“Ten months ago there was talk of this because they were finding Burmese pythons in the Everglades,” Keszey said. “Then this tragedy happened here in Sumter County with the little girl and that just gave them more ammunition.”

Charles Jason Darnell, Hare’s boyfriend, did not show up for the pre-trial hearing Wednesday. He is behind bars serving time on unrelated drug charges.

Cairns snake lover fined

A LOVE of all things scaly has come back to bite reptile enthusiast Rhys Levens who has copped a $4550 fine and had his illegal collection of slithering pets seized by wildlife officers.

The 27-year-old cabinetmaker was fined in Cairns Magistrates’ Court yesterday for 11 police and Nature Conservation Act charges after a search of his Bentley Park home on December 10 last year.

In Levens’ home zoo were about 20 snakes and lizards that were being kept unlawfully, including a dead lizard in the freezer and lizard eggs in an incubator.

The court was told all the reptiles were in the category of least concern for protected species apart from a highly venomous death adder which was classified as rare.

Among the haul were carpet, spotted, amethestine and water pythons as well as chameleon, thick-tailed and northern velvet geckoes.

Department of Environment and Resource Management solicitor Lynda Body said Levens held a recreational wildlife permit but it only authorised him to keep animals that he had bought, not taken from the wild.

Levens’ lawyer Bebe Mellick said his client was a “rare individual” who had been fascinated by reptiles since he was a boy and spent most weekends going bush, camping and looking at wildlife.

The animals he had brought home had all been found on roads or the side of roads or bush tracks where they were at risk of being killed or injured, Mr Mellick said.

“There is no suggestion they weren’t being properly looked after … it was his concern for their safety and well-being that caused them to be in his possession,” he said.

Some of the animals had also been given to Levens to care for by friends and it had been his intention to release them, Mr Mellick said.

Levens also pleaded guilty to two counts of stealing relating to an old police motorbike helmet and a cassowary crossing road sign that he had found during his bush trips and kept as curiosities.

No convictions were recorded.

NOTL man guilty of smuggling more than 1,000 reptiles

It gives new meaning to the phrase wild ride.

Niagara-on-the-Lake resident Andrew Fruck, 32, pleaded guilty in a St. Catharines court Friday to illegally loading up his GMC Safari van with more than 1,000 tortoises, turtles, boa constrictors and pythons and trying to sneak them across the Canada- U.S. border.

Canadian border guards at the Queenston-Lewiston bridge found a slew of reptiles hidden behind panels of the vehicle during a search on Sept. 15, 2009.

Among the critter contraband were seven types of endangered species, including 15 red-footed tortoises, three leopard tortoises, two elongated tortoises, 14 African-spurred tortoises, three macklot pythons, two forsten tortoises and six rainbow boa constrictors.

Also in the shipment were 203 southern painted turtles, 1,220 red-eared slider turtles, three pond turtles and four king snakes — which are not endangered. Fruck did not have proper documentation to import them into Canada.

Federal prosecutor Darren Anger said Frock was attempting to cross the border with his wife, Tricia, and their two children when guards noticed a few loose screws in the van’s back panels. A guard removed one of them and found a cotton bag stuffed with several turtles, he said.

Fruck pleaded guilty to seven counts of unlawfully importing an endangered animal into the country and four counts of unlawfully importing an animal into the country without proper permits.

He also pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to a customs officer and preaching a probation order banning the possession of animals.

Fruck’s wife, Tricia, 30, pleaded guilty to breaching a probation order relating to a charge in St. Catharines on Oct. 16, 2009.

Anger presented evidence from a Family and Children’s Services worker who visited the couple’s home at 766 East West Line in Niagara-on-the-Lake last fall. The worker found a mix of live and dead animals, including tree frog and gecko carcasses.

Thirty bags of dead rodents were found in an upstairs fridge.

An online resume says Fruck ran a company called Rodent Kings from 2001 to 2009 through which he sold small animals.

Both Andrew and Tricia have both been previously convicted of cruelty to animals when they were living in Napanee, Ont., Anger told the court.

The animals were seized at the border and transferred to other holding facilities. The 1,200 turtles were returned to their rightful home in Louisiana.

Both Andrew and Tricia Fruck will be sentenced on July 16.

New showcase in the Amphibians and Reptiles Hall at the NMNHS

A new showcase in the Amphibians and Reptiles Hall at the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia presents the most interesting poisonous snakes, as well as the most toxic frogs in the world. The visitors will receive contemporary, useful and interesting information about all the poisonous species of amphibians and reptiles inhabiting Bulgaria. They can learn facts about the amount of poison secreted from the most dangerous species, and data concerning the lethal dose for humans.

A separate panel shows information about the extremely interesting group of sea snakes. Another panel provides information about the most famous group of the poisonous frogs – that of family Dendrobatidae which are native to Central and South America.

The panels are illustrated with many colour photographs.

Warm weather has snakes slithering out

WASHINGTON – If this weather is giving you ideas about communing with nature, don’t be alarmed if you encounter a snake.

“They’ve just come out of the dens. You’re going to see a lot more snakes this time of the year than probably any other time,” says Bob Beyer, associate director of the Wildlife and Heritage Service at Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources.

But you have little to fear.

The very common black rat snake is not poisonous. It would rather slither away than bother you.

Beyer says snakes “do not want confrontation.” Poisonous varieties in the region tend to stay well hidden.

Copperheads and rattlesnakes look menacing, but Beyer says he’s stepped on three rattlesnakes in his lifetime and sat on a copperhead. He’s never been bitten.

Being scared, however, is a natural reaction.

“If you’re not sure what it is – back off. Just leave it alone.”

Referring to all types of snakes, Beyer says, “they’re a good thing to have around.”

They tend to eat things you don’t want to have around.

“If there’re small snakes, they’ll eat the bugs — the creepy crawlies around your house. If they’re bigger critters, like the black snake, they’re going to take care of the mice.”

Black snakes in the region can grow up to 8 feet long. And they’re fat. Beyer says more typically they grow to between 4 feet and 7 feet long.

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