Ledyard police shoot monitor lizard

CONNECTICUT -- For several months, Ledyard police and town animal control officers have fielded reports of a monitor lizard seen by residents at various spots in the eastern part of Ledyard.

On Sunday afternoon, Ledyard police killed one, after a resident reported sighting an “alligator” killing her chickens.

Police said that at 3:27 p.m. Sunday, Ledyard dispatchers received a 911 call from a Shewville Road resident about what she believed to be alligator in her chicken coop.

This photo provided by Ledyard Police Department, taken in July,
shows a monitor lizard. For several months, police and town
animal control officers have been receiving sightings of the animal in
the eastern part of Ledyard. Police could not confirmed this lizard
was the one killed Monday afternoon.

Officers from the Ledyard Police Department and the Ledyard animal control officer responded to the scene and found a reptile believed to be a monitor lizard attacking the resident’s chickens. Police said they were forced to shoot and kill the lizard to prevent “further risk to livestock, domestic animals and human life.”

Police did not identify the resident or her address.

Ledyard residents said Monday that although they have seen coyotes and similar animals roaming local backyards and woods, a monitor lizard is a different story.

“We saw a coyote probably two months ago,” Coachman Pike resident W.E. Smith said.

“I usually hear about coyotes or raccoons eating chickens,” Erik Thompson said. “I’ve seen coyotes and bobcats. … Never a lizard.”

“On occasion we would see fisher cats,” Pumpkin Hill Road resident Ruth Coletto said.

Brian Kleinman of Riverside Reptiles, a Hartford-based group that does live reptile and amphibian demonstrations, says it’s likely the lizard was a pet that escaped its outdoor enclosure.

That’s my guess — that it was kept outside for summer and the owner didn’t make a strong-enough enclosure,” he said. “Since they are illegal, the owner probably wouldn’t come forward. Unfortunately, it’s the lizard that pays the price.”

Kleinman said monitors are extremely intelligent and don’t make good pets. He also said they aren’t dangerous if left alone.

“They don’t go after people,” he said. “They are dangerous if you grab them. They have sharp teeth and sharp claws. They wouldn’t go after a child or anything. They are fairly shy animals.”

Smith said he opposes keeping exotic animals as pets.

“I think it’s stupid,” he said. “Like that woman who was mauled by the ape,” kept as a pet in 2009 in Stamford. “It tempts fate.”

In 2009, environmental officers ticketed a man for having a 4-foot-long white-throated monitor in a tractor-trailer in Bozrah.

Kleinman said that it may not have been necessary to shoot the lizard. But, reptile experts in this region aren’t common, and “police aren’t trained to deal with exotic animals. It’s kind of overkill but you have to look at it from their point of view,” he said.

Monitor lizards eat by attacking and overpowering small animals, said Kleinman, who called them “opportunistic carnivores. They will catch and eat anything they can. They have been known to eat cobras. They will steal crocodile eggs.”

Police remind residents that reptiles such as monitor lizards are illegal in Connecticut and can be extremely dangerous. Residents are not encouraged to keep them as pets.

(Norwich Bulletin - Aug 27 2013)