Geez, besides predatory birds, we have to worry about lizards? Be careful out there! :P
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VIDALIA, La. -- John Miller thought he might be hallucinating the first time he saw it.
But then another neighbor saw it -- a four-foot monitor lizard roaming their neighborhood on Camellia Drive behind Wendy's in Vidalia.
"He tried to eat my dog up two times," Miller said of his small Yorkshire terrier.
The lizard, an apparent pet on the loose from another neighbor on the street, has been roaming the street for up to two weeks.
Neighbors suspect the lizard is what ate two new roosters a resident on Camellia bought recently.
"He got two brand-new roosters," neighbor Michelle Bumgarner said. "They didn't even get to crow the next morning."
Bumgarner's husband put a trap behind their house with some chicken, but the lizard outsmarted them -- it ate the chicken from the back of the trap and avoided going inside the cage.
"All the guys were going around trying to find it," Bumgarner said. "It was a lizard hunt."
Miller fears not only for his dog but also for his children. "It's bigger than some of our children," he said.
In addition to setting the traps, Miller and another neighbor, Patrick Stroud, have tried shooting at the reptile. Miller hit it twice with a .22 Magnum, but it didn't faze the lizard.
Residents have called Vidalia police and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, who advised them to call an alligator hunter.
Miller even had the monitor's tail in his hand -- the way he was told to try to catch it -- but the lizard reached back and tried to bite him, so he let go.
John Leslie, wildlife biologist with Wildlife and Fisheries, said the department cannot regulate such lizards because they are classified as exotic animals.
He was not sure what kind of monitor lizard it is because no one with expert knowledge has seen it yet.
There are no regulations against keeping monitors as pets, Leslie said.
"These are very common pets around Florida," Leslie said. "It's unusual one would be up here this far."
Leslie was not surprised to hear the lizard was the suspect in the death of the roosters.
"I don't doubt it," he said. "They are a carnivorous species."
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