Woman Takes in Alligator, Authorities Confiscate - clevescene.com

1 July 2011

We feel like somewhere back in those murky days of our childhood there was a Disney movie about a woman fighting to keep her lovable pet alligator. Tom Hanks or Danny Glover might have co-starred. Ring any bells? Maybe we’ve just been doing too much bath salt to remember right. Anyway, if there wasn’t a 90s-slockfest about a well-intended woman and her favorite reptile, we’ve got a real life scenario just begging on its hands and knees for a big screen adaptation.

Civil liberties! Endangered species! Threats to public safety! Man versus nature! All this and more is tied in to plight of Charlotte Easton, the 55-year-old Rock Creek, Ohio woman affectionately known in them parts as the Lizard Lady. According to the Ashtabula Star Beacon, she’s a vet technician who takes in unwanted animals, especially reptiles. Her latest case? A three to four foot alligator. The plan was to hang onto the critter temporarily while trying to find a suitable sanctuary. But Easton only had the animal for a couple hours before police were knocking on the door.

According to the paper, when authorities got to the scene, the gator was outside the apartment complex Easton lived in. Kids were close by, and although the gator’s mouth was taped shut, people were nervous enough to call police. The gator was seized.

There seems to be some swampy legal terrain over the possession of an alligator. Easton claimed to have an exotic animal permit from the Federal government. However, the village of Rock Creek has an anti-exotic animal ordinance. But tossing the law books aside, Easton is unhappy.

Tracking crocodile with remote sensor - freemalaysiatoday.com

30 June 2011

A crocodile conservation programme initiated by the Sabah Wildlife Department should help reduce attacks on humans working in plantations.

SANDAKAN: The wanderings of a Sabah saltwater crocodile are being closely monitored here to halt increasing attacks on humans encroaching into their habitat to cultivate oil palm.

The Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) and Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) have successfully fitted a satellite tag on the four-metre-long saltwater crocodile in the Kinabatangan area which houses the longest river in Sabah, known for its abundant concentration of wildlife.

The tagging of this male crocodile called Girang was carried out in the vicinity of Danau Girang Field Centre with the assistance of the Sabah Wildlife Rescue Unit.

The remote-sensing device will track the movement of the crocodile in view of the rising number of crocodile attacks near rivers in oil-palm plantation-saturated Sabah, which experts claim have affected the feeding habits of many large predators.

SWD director Dr Laurentius Ambu disclosed today that this is the first time in Borneo and possibly in Southeast Asia that a saltwater crocodile has been tagged with a remote-sensing device.

“It is the start of a long-term research and conservation programme initiated by our department and the Danau Girang Field Centre,” he said in a statement.

According to DGFC director and head of the Kinabatangan Crocodile Programme, Dr Benoit Goossens, SWD was keen to carry out scientific work on the primary cause of the rising levels of crocodile attacks in Sabah’s large rivers after participating in the Human-Crocodile Conflict Conference held recently in Kota Kinabalu,

He said the opening of forested land for plantation development had caused a considerable decrease in the overall number of prey available, especially to large crocodiles.

“This situation makes for a far more dangerous environment.

“The incidents of crocodile attacks near plantations are extremely high compared to those of forested areas,” Goossens said.

He added that tagging large crocodiles in plantation and in forested areas, especially males which are potential man-eaters, will allow them to better understand and monitor the movements of these large predators.

“We hope that the results will help us provide guidelines for plantations workers and local villagers in order to reduce fatal attacks and contribute to the protection of this very important species for ecosystem health and tourism,” Goossens said.