When Dr. Marla Lichtenberger, head of the Milwaukee Emergency Center for Animals, got a call for help from the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission last May, she didn’t know it would lead to “the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Lichtenberger was being asked to examine and treat more than 250 reptiles seized from reptile-keeper Terry Cullen.
She told me in a recent interview that she found herself “opening plastic containers and peeking inside” to see what was peering back at her. She was never sure what it would be: a croc, a gator, or an anaconda. The snapping turtle she found was feeling, well, snappish.
“We had to figure out what these animals needed right away,” Lichtenberger told me. “We’d call out: ‘He needs lettuce. He needs water!”
The staff at MECA and MADACC worked long hours to save as many of the animals as possible. They even went out to buya horse trough to keep the anaconda in desperately needed water.
Major US zoos had loaned dozens of these endangered species animals to Cullen for safekeeping, as I report in a story today. Many of these animals were found dead, ill, or injured.
The sight of the animals as they were found “made my heart sink, ” said Lichtenberger. Here’s a video she made about her experiences.