Friday, August 16, 2019

Details coming into focus on Morelet's (Mexican) crocodile showing up in Ohio stream

A crocodile is not something one encounters everyday in the United States, let alone along a small stream in Ohio’s Preble County near the state line with Indiana.

Yet on August 14th the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s officer assigned to the county – Brad Turner – responded to a call that a crocodilian animal was swimming in tiny Brantis Fork Creek near the also small town of West Alexandria.

Turner was notified of the animal’s appearance near a local church camp following a report made by a group leader who was with a number of children. The wildlife officer shot the creature “for public safety,” said Brett Gates, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

The Agriculture Department became involved because it is this state body that oversees Ohio’s dangerous wild animal permitting law. This measure was enacted in 2014 following the intentional release of a host of dangerous big-game animals in north-central Ohio.

It is the Agriculture Department which issues permits to entities for possessing specifically named wildlife which are considered dangerous, among them being crocodiles. In all, the Agriculture Department has currently on file 38 dangerous wild animal permits, Gates said.

Gates said the 7 1/2-foot long, 171-pound crocodile was delivered to the Agriculture Department on August 15th. Its carcass was subsequently destroyed via the agency’s bio-rendering equipment.

We wanted to see if the animal was micro-chipped or was otherwise marked in such a way as to identify its owner,” Gate said. “But we also wanted to see what kind of crocodile it was.”

Using various crocodilian identification markers, the Agriculture Department staff concluded the now-deceased animal was a Morelet’s crocodile, also called a Mexican crocodile. This species is native to mostly fresh-water environments across a small swath of Central America that includes Belize and Guatemala and into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Morelet’s crocodiles have also been introduced into the Rio Grande. It is closely related to both the environmentally “vulnerable” listed American crocodile and the “critically threatened” listed Cuban crocodile though the Morlet is considered a species of “least concern.”

And at 7 ½ feet the Bantis Fork Morelet crocodile exceeds the species average length of 6.9 feet while its weight of 171 pounds is considerably much heavier than a wild specimen’s average weight of 84 to 128 pounds.

As for food preferences, the Bantis Fork Creek Morelet crocodile would have found much to its liking, prefering everything from fish to small mammals to birds and reptiles. Opportunistic, Morelets also are known to attack and eat domestic dogs and cats, while incidents of specimens attacking cattle and humans likewise are recorded.

This is one reason why have the dangerous wild animal law,” Gates said.

Gates said the Agriculture Department is working with local law enforcement to try and discover who was the owner of the crocodile and thus to secure information regarding how and why the animal either got away or was released.

Violating Ohio dangerous wild animal law is a misdemeanor of the first degree on a first offense and a felony of the fifth degree on each subsequent offense. A misdemeanor of the first degree In Ohio is punishable by up to six months in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both, and other potential assessments. A felony of the fifth degree is punishable by up to six to 12 months in jail, a fine of up to $2,500, or both.


- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net

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