In the News
"Sick crocodile found in suspect's home"
(Copyright The Windsor Star 2005)
VANCOUVER - Police responding to calls reporting shots fired at an East Vancouver residence Tuesday night arrived to discover an emaciated 1.2-metre-long caiman crocodile languishing in the suspect's home.
After officers found a male suspect attempting to flee the scene and another injured male, they sent a dog in to search the man's home.
The reptile, which was being kept in one of the bedrooms, was sitting under a heat lamp next to a kids' pool holding just a few centimetres of water.
Paul Springate, the curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Rainforest Reptile Refuge Society in nearby Surrey, B.C., who was called by Vancouver police to help rescue the reptile, quickly determined the animal was in critical condition.
"It's emaciated," said Springate. "Very, very close to dying.
"His eyes are not properly opened -- it only has half-opened eyes. Its backbone is showing. I, myself in my career having worked closely with 40 or so crocodilians of all types, have never seen a crocodilian with its backbone showing."
Springate found the crocodile, which had a bloated stomach and several open sores and lesions on its body, close to a 20-kilogram bag of dried dog food.
NO BITE LEFT
"This animal put up very little resistance, very little fight, which is really sad. You want them to be whamming their tail around saying, 'You get off me or I'm going to bite your arms off.' That would be healthy."
Caiman crocodiles usually subsist on a diet of fish, small mammals, birds and water fowl.
The discovery is renewing calls among animal groups to the City of Vancouver to enact an exotic animal bylaw.