Crikey! 150 Toronto crocodiles, alligators rescued by reptile zoo
The Indian River Reptile Zoo has taken in about 150 crocodiles, alligators and caimans from an undisclosed Toronto home.

TheStar.com
Aug. 13, 2015
Diana Hall

Bry Loyst spent hours wrestling illegal pet crocodiles in Toronto last weekend.

That’s right. Crocodiles.

The curator of the Indian River Reptile Zoo and a small group of volunteers carefully wrestled, muzzled and removed about 150 pet crocodiles, alligators and caimans from their mystery Toronto-area home on Friday, quietly whisking them away in four large transport trucks to a new reptile facility just east of Peterborough.

“It’s nuts,” Loyst said Monday of what he believes could be the largest crocodilian rescue of its kind in Canada. Days after the rescue, the zoo still needed volunteers to unload and move the last of the reptile army to its spacious new crocodile-friendly enclosure.

He said a Toronto couple had been looking after the horde of reptiles and kept them as pets for “years and years and years” in a mixed residential and industrial area of the city.

Then, two years ago, Loyst said, the couple asked the reptile zoo for help.

The city prohibits owning crocodiles as pets, as it does bears, elephants, poisonous animals and other exotic creatures.

“I think [the owners] just realized that enough is enough, and they need a larger place,” Loyst said. “Kudos to them. A lot of people don’t do the right thing with exotic pets, and they actually did.”

Most of the 400 animals at the zoo, in addition to the new arrivals, are rescues that had been abandoned, imported illegally or seized in drug busts, but many haven’t been taken care of as well as the Torontonian crocodilians.

“The individual that looked after them did a really good job considering the situation and the housing,” Loyst said. “Most of the animals are in great health. They don’t have much muscle tone, obviously, because they can’t move much, but they’re fairly healthy. We’re really impressed.”

While the ill-suited Toronto home might have comfortably housed the crocodiles when they were younger and smaller, Loyst said the animals outgrew their cramped quarters.

He said the host of rescued crocodiles, alligators and caimans, which includes several species, also ranges in age and length, with some reptiles measuring a metre long, and others about 3.5 metres.

Staff at the city of Toronto’s Animal Services division said they didn’t know of any recent complaints or reports of an investigation into a home with crocodiles.

Fiona Venedam, a supervisor with Animal Services, said news of the 150 crocodilians kept in Toronto was unexpected. She added that complaints about prohibited animals are unusual.

“It’s surprising that somebody would be keeping 150 (crocodilians) without somebody complaining about it, definitely,” Venedam said.

Loyst and the Indian River Reptile Zoo won’t say where in Toronto they recovered the reptiles, but the curator said the owners helped the zoo pay for an expansion of its crocodilian rescue facility, an area of the zoo that is not yet open to the public and is needed to house the extra animals.

The zoo will also need help getting enough food for its new residents, Loyst said, emphasizing the zoo’s use of leftovers from a local chicken farmer.

The Indian River Reptile Zoo isn’t alone in fielding calls for help. Frantic owners looking for a way to house their overgrown, illegal and exotic pets often turn to the Reptilia reptile zoo and education facility in Vaughan, too.

Andre Ngo, Reptilia’s director of research and curriculum, said his facility receives “constant calls” for help.

“The problem is, people see these things when they’re babies and they’re adorable,” Ngo said, adding that in the case of the 150 crocodiles, alligators and caimans, the owner likely had “a collection attitude.”

“It is pretty irresponsible. Just one crocodilian requires a lot of space and a lot of time and a life-time commitment,” Ngo said — aside from the fact that the crocodiles are “completely illegal” in the city.

“Keeping them at home is a really bad idea,” he said.

But that doesn’t stop people from getting their hands on the scaly creatures to sell or keep for themselves.

Last summer, a team of authorities and reptile experts captured a spectacled caiman, believed to be an abandoned pet, in the Catfish Pond at High Park.

“Are there some [owners] out there that do a good job? There very well could be with crocodilians, but I haven’t seen them. It is possible, I suppose, but they’re just not something that should be kept as pets,” Loyst said.

“They should be back in their countries of origin in the wild.”

BY THE NUMBERS:

• 150 Crocodiles, alligators and caimans transferred to the zoo
• 8 Hours it took to catch and load the animals
• 4 26-foot transport trucks filled with the crocodiles and their cousins
• 150 –Approximate distance in kilometres to the zoo
• 20 Approximate number of volunteers involved in the rescue

PROHIBITED ANIMAL COMPLAINTS:

• 1,527 Complaints received by the city since 1998 about prohibited animals such as pot-bellied pigs, chickens, snakes, alligators, lizards and raccoons
• 2014 Year city staff received an anaconda from an owner who had kept the snake in an apartment.
• 2013 Year Animal Services became aware of a caiman at a business that didn’t “traditionally sell animals” in the city.
• 2012 Year staff investigated a complaint about a kangaroo and lemur. The owner later admitted the animals had been moved out of Toronto before the city’s investigation began.