LONDON FREE PRESS (Ontario) 29 September 09 A man captures the reptile in London with his bare hands (Joe Matyas)

Wrestling with financial portfolios for clients wouldn't seem to be a suitable background for taming an alligator.

But it is if you're John Stephan.

Stephan, regional manager for the Synergy Group and a resident of northeast London, looked very much like famous Australian crocodile hunter Steve Irwin yesterday when he captured a roaming reptile with his bare hands, carried it a distance of about 75 metres and made sure its mouth was taped shut.

"My wife's going to tell me I'm crazy," said the man who made the job of London Animal Care Centre staff easier yesterday.

Stephan was walking his two-year-old Shi-Tzu, named Gunner, around the storm pond in the Cedar Hollow subdivision southeast of Fanshawe Rd. and Highbury Ave. about 2:30 p.m. yesterday when he saw two television crews and other onlookers gathered around the pond.

"I asked what was going on and I was told there was a small crocodile or alligator in the pond," he said. "There had been sightings and it had been filmed."

Stephan decided to look for the creature on the south side of the pond, "because I noticed it was reedy over there."

When he got to the reeds, he followed a slithery trail in the muck until he found an alligator sunning itself on a bed of weeds.

"It wasn't moving," he said. "I came up to it from behind, reached down and grabbed it with my bare hands."

The creature, later identified by an exotic wildlife specialist as a "spectacled or common caiman", started to wriggle and put up a fight, said Stephan.

"I think it was a bit listless because of the cold. But when I picked it up, it struggled to free itself. I wasn't going to let go, though. I've got big strong hands and I kept a tight grip on it."

Stephan walked with the caiman, a relative of the alligator, about 75 meters to an A Channel truck, where he asked television reporter Nick Paparella to get some duct tape and tape the mouth of the creature shut.

Stephan then sat in a vehicle with the caiman until London animal control staff arrived to take it away.

Animal control staff had been looking for the creature, which was about a metre in length and five kilograms in weight, the day before, said Stephan.

"I saw two of them near the pond with those capture poles with wires on them, but I thought it was routine business."

Stephan said Gunner followed him during the capture and didn't make any fuss.

"I was business as usual for him," he said. "He didn't seem to be scared or anything like that."

Kent Lattanzio, director of operations for the London Animal Care Centre, said calls were received Sunday morning from residents in the Killarney Rd. area who believed they had seen a small crocodile or alligator.

Animal control officers were dispatched to assess the situation but they weren't able to capture or confine it.

After Stephan caught it, the London centre called the Indian River Reptile Zoo in Peterborough, a licensed reptile zoo, to take it away.

Under London bylaws, it's prohibited to keep animals that live in the wild as pets, said Lattanzio.

"About 5% of the bylaw complaints that we receive involve such exotic creatures as tropical birds, snakes and things like crocodiles, alligators and caimans," he said. "But we usually find them in a residence in aquariums or cages."

The normal procedure is to inform people about the bylaw prohibition and to issue a dated compliance order, he said. If they don't comply, they can be charged and fined under the provincial offences act, he said.

Bry Loyst, curator of the Indian River zoo, said people often buy crocodiles, alligators and caimans when they're small, but they don't want them when they grow larger.

"That's when they try to get rid of them," he said.

Such reptiles generally don't fare very well in captivity, he said, adding they usually die in the first year.

"They're basically carnivores from central and south America. They eat birds, fish, small animals and insects and they don't get that kind of diet in captivity. The people who buy them don't know how to take care of them."

Loyst said the caiman captured in London yesterday will be quarantined for "six months to a year" in the Peterborough zoo before it's allowed near other creatures.

"We have to monitor its condition and make sure it's healthy," he said.

Stephan took a chance when he captured the caiman with his bare hands, he said.

"You can get some nasty lacerations or bites from even a small one like that," he said. "It could certainly hurt a child or a family pet."

Judging by the size of the caiman, Loyst said it was likely several years old.

The reptile wouldn't be able to withstand Canada's cold winters, but can live for up to a year without food. Reptiles don't eat much when it's cold, The caiman prefers water to be about 28.5C degrees.

"People see these things and think they're cool and then they don't think it through," he said. "There's a pretty good demand for these things. The sale of exotic pets is the second largest illegal business in central and south America, next to the drug trade."
A man captures the reptile in London with his bare hands

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