PUBLIC OPINION (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania) 20 January 11 'Don't get too close. It will tear you up' (Jim Hook)

Firefighters at the mobile home fire in Pleasant Hall on Sunday took the lizard cage outside and heeded a neighbor's advice: "Don't get too close. It will tear you up."

The fire had burned a hole at the top of the plexi-glass front of the lizard's cage. The lizard was eventually extracted through the hole.

"The Nile Monitor is mean as hell," owner James Dahm said. "It's easily the meanest animal I've had."

Pleasant Hall Volunteer Fire Company Deputy Chief Tom Rine referred to the monitor lizard as an "iguana," a popular pet with a gentler reputation.

The Nile Monitor is known for its aggressiveness. Growing to six or seven feet, the lizard prefers to snack on crocodile eggs in its native Africa.

Dahm said he got his monitor lizard about 10 years ago from a Shippensburg pet shop that has since gone out of business. Some college students had purchased the animal at a reptile show, found out how big and mean the lizard was and sold it to the pet store. Other college students twice more bought the monitor, but also returned it to the store.

"I knew he'd have a short crappy life," said Dahm, who kept the lizard in a divided cage. The lizard lived in one side, and Dahm cleaned the other. He reduced the animal's ration to keep down its size.

"If he laid into you he'd break your finger," Dahm said. "They don't let go."

One time the lizard grabbed his finger and dug its claws into his arm.

"They're longer than a cat's claws," he said. "It sounded like cloth ripping. He ripped the muscle from the bone."

Days after Dahm pried the monitor loose with a screwdriver, the bruising showed. The lizard was less than a foot long.

At the time of the fire, the monitor was about three feet long, including its tail.

When Dahm moved to the mobile home, he covered the lizard with two towels, he said. Wearing gloves he put it in a tote.

"It was easier to move the rattlesnake than him," Dahm said.

Dahm did not have the northern Pacific rattlesnake at the time of the fire.

There were conflicting reports of another snake at the home.

Rime reported that a 10-foot snake with a girth the size of a soda can perished in the fire. Franklin County Humane Police Officer Floyd "Buck" Hessler could not confirm the existence of a large snake.

"There was no monster snake," Dahm said.

Although at one time, he said he did own a large constrictor.
'Don't get too close. It will tear you up'

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• PA Press: Monitor - Don't get too close - W von Papineäu, Wed Jan 26 11:14:25 2011