Ethiopian Review

BRIDGEPORT — Steve Windsor’s 8-foot long red-tailed boa constrictor was getting a bit too big.

Andrew and Maria Bowie had no idea their Sulcata tortoises — Spike and Spot — would end up the size of a hubcap.

And when the Berniers evicted a problem tenant, they found a glass cage that was home to a small American alligator.

These were just four of the 135 animals — the majority of them reptiles — that were turned in during the state’s first Exotic Animal Amnesty Day held by the state Department of Environmental Protection and Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo.

Originally expecting to get about 50 pets, DEP Spokesman Dennis Schain said they quickly rethought that number when they arrived to find people waiting for
them at 9:30 a.m. The drop-off began at 10 a.m.

“We had a lot of calls,” Schain said, and many of the people dropping off pets, he said, were sad to see their companions go, but happy they would find a good home.

Schain said the zoo would get its choice of any of the animals. Many of the reptiles will probably end up at Rainforest Reptile Shows in Massachusetts, an educational facility. None of the animals, Schain said, would be euthanized.

“I’m a little sad,” said Jeffrey Seepes, 42, who lives in Norwalk and New York. He’d just dropped off “Petey,” a 3-year-old American alligator who started off at about 16 inches but was now about 4 feet long. “I know he’s going to a good place.”

Petey, he said, was very tame and would swim with him in the pool. Seepres said he doubted it could survive in the wild if he brought it to Florida and released it. “I figured the zoo was the best thing,” Seepes said, adding, “I knew he would grow. I just didn’t realize how fast he would grow in captivity.”

The Berniers, who live in Milford, were not as sad to turn in “Allen,” the American alligator they became guardians of when they booted their tenant.

“We tried to find places that we thought would take him,” Mark Bernier said, adding they were afraid they’d get arrested if found with the alligator. “We didn’t want to let it get loose.” The older it got, when you’d walk into a room, “it would hiss,” he said.

His wife, Alison, is relieved the alligator is off their hands, but added, “in a way it is a little sad.” Son Kevin said they fed the alligator frozen mice, hot dogs, and goldfish.

For the Bowies, who live in Norwich, it was time to let Spike and Spot, both girls, go. They were getting so big that Andrew Bowie said he would have had to build an enclosure for them out of glass. “We didn’t know they would get that big in eight years,” he said. When they bought them, he said, both of them fit in the palm of one hand.

“I like them a lot,” Andrew Bowie said, “but they don’t give you any love. They just want food.”

Susan Frechetti, deputy commissioner for environmental conservation at the DEP, said none of the pets being turned in are illegal, at this point. The department, however, will be looking at requiring permits for alligators.

“We’re happy to have to opportunity to offer this option,” Frechetti said. Many people, she said, want to get an exotic pet but don’t realize how quickly pets, like reptiles, can grow and what their care entails. “So we’re seeing a lot of people who decided this is the best option,” Frechetti said.
Exotic mix Among the animals turned in: An 8-foot albino Burmese python A caiman 4 American alligators Several parrots African Leopard Tortoise A capuchin monkey 2 Sulcata tortoises An oppossum.

- By Genevieve Reilly | connpost.com