Posted by:
HappyHillbilly
at Fri Oct 12 21:40:19 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by HappyHillbilly ]
Here's The Orlando Sentinel's newspaper article about catching a monitor.
"Long arm of the law snatches a big lizard"
www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/orl-leapinlizard1207oct12,0,4624605.story
By: Rich McKay - Sentinel Staff Writer
October 12, 2007
EDGEWOOD - The monster of Haverill Road is gone.
A broomstick, a barking bulldog named Maggie and a cop-turned-lizard-wrestler did the job.
They caught the 4-foot, Godzilla-like African Nile monitor lizard that had folks in this bedroom community riled for weeks.
Residents had been keeping pets locked up and looking twice before reaching into trash cans and mailboxes.
"We've got it; we've got the Edgewood monster," said a smiling police Chief John Tegg, slapping the back of Officer Ron Hulbert.
Hulbert had grabbed the lizard and held on tight until a trapper arrived with a cage.
"I'm afraid now I might lose this man to Gatorland," the chief added.
Hulbert just hoisted his utility belt, took a breath and answered with deliberate bombast: "I'm here to protect and to serve."
The lizard saga started weeks ago as neighbors starting seeing a Jurassic Park throwback scurrying through their yards and swimming in their pools.
Tegg hired trappers who placed baited cages in the Edgewood neighborhoods off Orange Avenue, but to no avail.
Nathan Lowe, 28, was studying for a test Thursday afternoon when he saw the lizard scurry across his fence on Haverill Road, the hot spot for lizard sightings.
He looked outside and saw his 11-month-old bulldog, Maggie, barking and snapping as the lizard hissed and swished its tail.
"I came over with a push broom and held it down," Lowe said matter-of-factly. His father called police, and Hulbert was there in a minute.
"We kept trying to scoop it up, but it kept wiggling around," Hulbert said.
So he made a snap decision, reached down with his bare hands and grabbed it just behind its head, and by its tail.
"Then I said, 'OK, now what?' " Hulbert said, realizing that they didn't have a cage, and if he let go, even for an instant, the angry beast's talons and teeth could get him.
Police called in one of the trappers on lizard patrol nearby. Brett McCullough of Custom Pest Solutions had a cage.
But it took 15 minutes for him to get to Haverill Road, and by then both Hulbert and the reptile were exhausted.
"I was pretty tired, but so was he -- if it's a he, that is," Hulbert said.
The three men were able to get it into the cage without any scrapes or bites and then perched the cage atop the trunk of Hulbert's patrol car for all the neighborhood to see.
"Well, thank goodness," neighbor Jennifer Crossley said. "I thought it was going to get my dogs; they're little."
McCullough said the animal would be delivered safe and sound to biology professor Todd Campbell at the University of Tampa.
Neighbor Rob Dey, though, doesn't think the story ends here. He's certain that there are more monitor lizards around.
To that, Chief Tegg said, "Well, I guess we'll find out for sure if we catch another one."
www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/orl-leapinlizard1207oct12,0,4624605.story
Click the link above to view photo of the monitor caught.
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American
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Newspaper Article About the Catch - HappyHillbilly, Fri Oct 12 21:40:19 2007
