TIMES-UNION (Albany, New York) 05 December 06 Exotic pets spice up bus rides for caiman owner - Man takes along three alligatorlike critters to Albany library to give free lectures (Paul Grondahl)
Albany: Jose Lopez turns heads when he takes his pets on the bus or in a taxicab.
Stuff happens when you take public transportation and own three caimans, a Spanish term for alligators.
"I just think they're cool," says Lopez, who grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He raised a tarantula and iguana and considered exotic pets as much a staple of his childhood as beans and rice.
Lopez loads his caimans into a 20-gallon aquarium and lugs them to the Albany Public Library main branch.
The crocodilians are a visual aid for his monthly free lectures on raising exotic reptiles.
"I like to educate people about threatened and endangered species," he says.
Caimans are medium-size crocodilians related to alligators. They can grow up to 6 to 8 feet in length and are found in Central and South America. They are a threatened species.
Lopez bought his caimans for about $250 each from a licensed captive-bred dealer in Florida. They were shipped via UPS in special boxes.
It helps to have an understanding mom when you own caimans.
Lopez, 36, keeps his three young crocodilians -- each are about 2 feet long and still growing -- in the living room of his mom's duplex in a 120-gallon aquarium.
"I don't mind having them here, but I won't take care of them," says his mom, Deborah Lopez.
Her son, who works as an aide with disabled adults, stops by her house each day to feed the caimans -- they eat crickets, goldfish and live mice -- and to clean the aquarium.
In his own apartment, across town, Lopez keeps two bull pythons.
"My brother has no family and no girlfriend, so he puts all his time and money into his animals," says his sister, Jennifer Lopez, 35, who lives in Scotia and works for the state. He has four other siblings.
The Lopez family moved from Puerto Rico to the Bronx in 1983 and moved to Albany four years later.
It took several years, as well as letters of support from employers and friends, for Jose Lopez to get a license from the state Department of Environmental Conservation's Division of Fish and Wildlife. Licenses are renewed annually.
Lopez owns two males and a female. His niece named them Biter, Billy Bob and Ginger.
He's never been bitten, but he's careful during feeding time.
"They'll fight over food," he says. "I stick around while they're feeding."
His caimans are hybrids, a spectacled caiman bred with a Yacara caiman.
His crocodilians currently weigh between 2 and 3 pounds. They're growing steadily. He's already anticipating the day when they outgrow the aquarium. Lopez has an agreement that the breeder will buy them back when they get too big.
In the meantime, he's begun an application to get a license to own an alligator. He's got an eye on a 9-inch baby gator for $50.
For the most part, family members are supportive. But not his grandmother, who lives in Puerto Rico and is used to giving exotic wild reptiles a wide birth.
"My grandma thinks my caimans are going to eat me," Lopez says. "She's so old-school."
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