Crocodile eludes dragnet

September 28, 2009

REALLY WILDLIFE: Police and animal control officers try to corral crafty caiman in storm water pond

By RANDY RICHMOND
The London Free Press

Beavers, eagles, herons, and now, a small crocodile.

"We see a lot of wildlife here," Londoner Sherri Friesman said yesterday at her Killarney Rd. home in north London.

"I don't think we're going to see anything more exciting than this."

About 10:30 a.m. yesterday, Friesman was having a coffee on her second-storey deck overlooking a storm water pond in the Cedar Hollow subdivision, east of Highbury Ave. just south of Fanshawe Park Rd.

She spotted something large in the water.

"I just thought it was a beaver. I grabbed my binoculars and saw it looked like some kind of alligator. I was pretty excited."

She called London's animal care and control centre and kept an eye on the reptile.

At one point, the reptile approached a bird at the edge of the pond.

"The bird didn't know what to make of him."

Fortunately, it appeared the crocodile was looking for sun, not breakfast, she said.

Eventually the crocodile, thought to be a caiman, found warmth on a long ridge of rocks down the middle of the pond.

When the animal control officers showed up, the caiman plopped back in the water, said London police Sgt. Jeff Addley.

The metre-long reptile was still showing its head above water when police arrived to help, he said.

Police and animal control officers tried to capture the crocodile with a noose attached to a pole, but it managed to give them the slip.

Officers approached the croc the same way they approach crooks, setting up a perimeter around the pond.

By 3 p.m., they had brought in dogs to try to flush the crocodile out, with little success.

By the end of the afternoon, the officers had given up for the day.

"He's since resurfaced and he's scouting around the edge of the pond looking for some place to sun himself," Friesman said.

"If they don't get him out, he'll live until the water gets too cold to sustain his body temperature and then he'll be gone," she said.

"Hopefully they'll get him before then."

The caiman was likely someone's pet, until it got too large or expensive to keep, Addley said.

Instead of taking the reptile to a zoo, the person likely abandoned it by the pond, he said.

"Anyone who does that is negligent of the fact there are children, pets and families here."

The smallest of the breed, the dwarf caiman, can reach lengths of 1.2 metres in females and 1.6 m in males.

The caiman is no danger to adults, but pets and small children might be at risk, Addley said.

"Obviously our concern would be how would it react to a small child who is somewhere near the edge of the pond," he said.

"The last thing that (people) are going to be thinking of is a caiman from South America coming out of the water toward them. It certainly is going to give them a fright."

randy.richmond@sunmedia.ca

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2009/09/28/11161636-sun.html