ARIZONA DAILY STAR (Tucson) 05 June 05 Exotic snakes, alligators could turn up in your neighborhood (Tony Davis)
Picture a triple-axle trailer crammed with a man's worldly possessions, including 15 pet alligators running loose under a bed and 17 others packed in cages, passing through Casa Grande in the dead of night.
Now, picture a single alligator, 4 1/2 feet long, living in a 40-gallon metal container - in a Tucson dentist's bedroom.
Or, there's the milky-white, albino diamondback rattlesnake, imported from Texas, 6 feet long, nicknamed Lucifer and so mean that his guardian won't open his cage except to give him food.
Slowly but surely, these exotic beasts are slithering into the Arizona desert.
Arizona Game and Fish law enforcement agents and other officials say they have seen an influx of alligators, cobras, imported diamondbacks, vipers and other illegal creatures in recent years.
The number of exotic pets seized by the agency or sparking complaints isn't huge - about 115 cases statewide since 2000, including about a half-dozen alligators a year.
But investigators say complaints are rising as the state's population grows, causing concern about threats both to public safety - what's living next door to you? - and to the natural environment.
"The crux of the problem is that people are importing all sorts of critters, from all over the globe, with no regard to the regulations, and animals are being released either accidentally or intentionally," said Hans Koenig, a Tucson-based field supervisor for Game and Fish.
Agents are also concerned that they are only scratching the surface in the exotic animal trade, said John Romero, Game and Fish's law enforcement chief in Tucson. Because these pets are popular, easy to import and conceal and the state lacks staffing to catch all violators, "we have no idea of the magnitude of the problem," Koenig said.
In 1989, he and two other Game and Fish officials burst into what Koenig calls a "roomful of death" - a South Phoenix bedroom full of caged venomous snakes, the majority imported. When they loaded the snakes into an SUV, they filled the vehicle, he recalls.
"He had puff adders from Africa, Levantine vipers from the Middle East, and tropical American rattlesnakes from Central America and Mexico," Koenig said last week. "I had never seen anything outside a zoo that even compared to that."
Some more recent cases:
In mid-April, state Department of Public Safety officers stumbled upon Damon Heynen's gators and 50 other animals, including boa constrictors, when they stopped a truck pulling a trailer with a busted taillight. The gators, federally protected and illegal to possess in Arizona, ranged from 20 inches to 9 feet long.
The bust occurred near Casa Grande, around 11 p.m. The 38-year-old Heynen told police that he was hauling the alligators from his previous home in San Bernardino, Calif., to a new home in Alabama, said Frank Valenzuela, a DPS spokesman.
The very next day, Timothy Burkhardt of Tucson, 26, was found guilty in Pima County Justice Court of importing and possessing two albino diamondbacks he brought from California. He argued he should be able to keep them as pets because the rules were weak. Justice Carmen Dolny didn't fine Burkhardt. She set aside his conviction after he agreed to give up the rattlers. Koenig seized the snakes from a living room terrarium.
In October 2004, Koenig and other agents seized three alligator-like caimans from the Northwest Side Tucson home of Allen Willingham. One floated in a small pond in front; the other two lurked in a backyard pool. Willingham later said he had gotten them from friends and didn't realize they were illegal. His court case is pending.
In April 2004, Tucson dentist Dr. James L. Davenport II, now 44, pleaded guilty and agreed to a $200 fine on charges of possessing and importing restricted live wildlife. In November 2003, a Game and Fish agent seized his gator from the galvanized container covered by a piece of plywood in a bedroom, said agent Joel Weiss.
Davenport, a Northwest Side resident, does not wish to discuss the case, said a secretary at his Northwest Side office.
"The gator could have knocked the plywood off if he had wanted," said Weiss.
Alligators are a particularly big public safety issue, Romero said. "A 4-foot-long gator is really powerful. A kid could go up there and get bit easily," Romero said. "Those animals are nothing but muscle."
Game and Fish's Ken Dinquel is used to busting people for alligators, but finding 32 in the Casa Grande case was extraordinary. He seized them about 90 minutes after Highway Patrol officers found them.
"Visualize the scene. It was a fairly large trailer, the guy was moving everything he owned across the country, stacked top to bottom with clothes, luggage, boxes, a TV, appliances, power tools and welders. He stuck this stuff in wherever it would fit. It was just weird.
"My reaction was, 'Who is this guy and what is he doing with all these animals? Why does he have them in my state?' "
Nobody in authority knows the answer, because Heynen hasn't been seen by enforcement officials since the night of the bust. He missed a May 23 court hearing in Pinal County.
He probably will never stand trial in Arizona unless federal officials also pursue him for transporting protected wildlife across state lines. The state will not extradite him back to Arizona because the state charges against him are only misdemeanors.
But from handling other cases, authorities believe that peoples' basic need for wildness in an urban world drives many to buy these pets, said Koenig. Besides that, he added, "I think there is just the thrill of owning something that is illegal."
Exotic venomous snakes, such as cobras or vipers, are an even bigger problem than the gators because it's harder to find the owners and because they are so dangerous, Romero said. A lot of time the state finds them through informants or after getting domestic violence calls from police or sheriff's deputies, he said.
But a Florida dealer of exotic snakes said authorities would be better off cracking down on what he calls more risky activities, including high school football, horseback riding, dog bites and bicycling. Nationwide, about 15 poisonous snakebites occur annually, said Mark Lucas of the Fort Lauderdale area, compared with 205 fatal horse-related injuries, 27 fatal dog bites and 800 cycling fatalities.
So far, there've been two known cases of death or serious injury to Tucsonans from exotic reptile bites, both more than a decade ago.
In 1992, Lorain "Bud" Miller, a plumber, died about an hour after an albino diamondback from Texas bit him during a party. Miller, a Huns motorcycle club member with a history of excessive drinking, was drinking and playing games with the snake, recalled his brother, Harrison Miller, of Mason City, Iowa.
"Bud" Miller lived fast, hard and on the edge, and rattlesnakes were just a part of that lifestyle, Harrison Miller said. He wouldn't take orders from "any kind of authority."
Named Scratch, the 5 1/2-foot snake had lived in at least four households here, according to a written account of Miller's death by David Hardy, a Tucson herpetologist.
After the snake struck Miller on his hand, one of his friends gave him three electroshocks from a stun gun in a failed attempt to neutralize the bite.
Miller was keeping eight other diamondbacks besides the albino, and had been bitten four other times, not allowing any previous antivenin treatment "because he was saving it for the 'big one,' '' Hardy wrote.
In 1993, Tucsonan Layne Hendricks, then 35, lost part of his finger after his pet puff adder bit him as he was transferring it from one cage to another. Game and Fish seized the adder, 19 diamondbacks, 16 Mojave rattlesnakes and a saw-scaled viper. The adder and the saw-scaled viper are both exotic venomous snakes that are illegal to possess in Arizona. The state doesn't allow people to own more than four of any Arizona native reptile.
Hendricks' case shows how dicey the prospects are for someone bitten by an exotic venomous snake, said Dr. Leslie Boyer, the Arizona Poison Control Center's medical director, who handled the center's response to the bite.
First, there is no federally approved treatment for non-U.S.-bred exotic snakebites. Physicians must rely on imported drugs held by licensed zoos. Plus, the standard treatment for exotic snakebites can cause fatal allergic reactions, Boyer said.
It took 16 hours to get the antidote from a Dallas zoo to Tucson after Hendricks was bitten. By then, his entire arm was affected by the bite, Boyer said.
The bottom line: If you don't own a cobra, your odds of being bitten are about zero, Boyer said. But if you own one and haven't told anyone about it, you could be in serious trouble:
"The medical system is not prepared to give you the treatment you need."
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Commonly seized exotic wildlife
Alligators, from the Southeast
Caimans, from South America
Crocodiles, from Africa and Australia
Cobras, from Africa
Gaboon vipers, from Africa
Out-of-state rattlesnakes, copperheads, water moccasins and other New World vipers
Serval cats, often confused with cheetahs, from Africa
Source: Arizona Game and Fish Department
The reptile wrangler
Scottsdale : Russ Johnson caught his first snake at age 4 and never stopped. Today, he has learned enough to know when to take on exotic animals and when to hold back.
At 53, Johnson, a retired truck driver and truck company owner, looks like a professional wrestler, with a bald head and a hefty build.
But he grapples with 100 pythons, rattlers and copperheads in his garage in the McDowell Mountain foothills and more than 250 gators, tortoises and Gila monsters kept at a Scottsdale sanctuary.
The sanctuary is run by the Phoenix Herpetological Society, which stores wildlife after state and federal officials seize it from those keeping it illegally, until permanent homes - usually zoos, museums or universities - can be found.
The 32 gators taken in April from a passing motorist in Casa Grande are there. So are three caimans taken from Tucsonan Allen Willingham. The cost to keep them in roosters isn't chicken feed - $400 a week.
Pointing to a 6-foot-long albino rattler in his garage, nicknamed Lucifer, Johnson said, "I only open that cage when I have to. He's the only snake that makes me sweat. He's fast and loose. He's a monster."
With cobras and gaboon vipers, more venomous than rattlers, he's freer, pulling them from cages and lifting them with a stick.
Johnson professes to love gators: "They're prehistoric. They haven't changed in 125 million years."
The Internet connection
The demand for exotics is often satisfied on Web sites offering alligators, pit vipers, cobras and other reptiles for $100 to $1,500 and up, plus shipping.
An ad on Kingsnake.com for Liam's Herps promises a "gorgeous" pair of monocled cobras for $350.
On Agriseek.com, a "Mr. Larry Gator" of Gary, Ind., wants $100 for a baby alligator, 8 to 12 inches long, that he promises will be "very mild" but will get big because it's "eating good."
The threat to natives
Alligators are among the hardiest of beasts, living up to 100 years and growing up to 19 feet long. In their native southeastern United States, they live at the top of the food chain, and have no predators.
That's one of many reasons Arizona Game and Fish officers want to keep exotic gators, snakes and other imported wildlife out of the state - to protect the state's native wildlife from non-native competition.
That's also why the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will pay a Phoenix reptile specialist $6,500 to drive eight hours and 500 miles to a national monument near the Nevada border later this month: to capture and haul off an alligator that's lived in ponds there for 19 years.
"Any non-native species introduced into Arizona's ecosystem can potentially throw things out of whack," said Russ Johnson, president of the Phoenix Herpetological Society.
"Any crocodilian would have an immediate impact. Due to the nature of our climate, it would have an abundant source of food and would experience dynamic physical growth."
The count
Since 2000, Arizona has received 258 complaints of reptile-related law violations. Its patrol officers have found another 76 apparent violations. Of those, 112 resulted in citations. About 30 to 35 percent of all complaints and citations involved snakes, alligators and other non-native pets and other reptiles.
Source: Arizona Game and Fish Department
Exotic snakes, alligators could turn up in your neighborhood
