Something in the Water

In 2004 pest controller, Steve North, made a routine check on a house in Peckham regarding any nuisances of the vermin kind, and was shocked to be lead to the bathroom of one particular tenant, where he was met by a crocodile which was lazing in the bathtub. Stunned by the two-foot long creature before him, Steve, who works as operations manager for Southwark Council, had to call for assistance in order to remove the wallowing reptile. The ‘owner’ of the beast claimed he’d simply been looking after the animal for a friend.

The story didn’t hit the headlines until December 2008 but by then, thankfully, the crocodile had found a home. This isn’t always the case for such exotic pets.

In 2005 at Tooting Bec Common, an alligator was alleged to be on the loose and eventually caught by a local resident, however, when wildlife inspectors arrived on the scene, they found a dead, three-legged Bosc Monitor lizard which had probably been dumped by an uncaring owner and perished in the cold weather. The reptile was the second monitor lizard to be found in the wild in south London over a few days.

On the Thursday previous, a Nile monitor, was discovered alive in a Lambeth Park. Monitor lizards feed on a diet of mice and chicks and can grow up to six-feet long. The RSPCA recommended the reptiles not be kept as domestic pets because of the space required and the expertise needed to keep them in good health. Inspector Gough said the Bosk monitor had probably been kept as a pet but escaped. He said: ‘We were called at around 9.30am on Sunday to reports of an alligator on Tooting Bec Common. It was reported to be lying at the common next to Elmbourne Road.’

‘Posters warning of a small crocodile-like creature living in a pond in Shirley are a hoax. Croydon Council has denied issuing the signs, which bear a fuzzy reproduction of its logo, saying it is the work of a prankster. News of the croc broke on Monday on a local website then another contributor posted a mock-up picture of a croc sitting on a grass verge near one of Croydon’s trams. The following morning a copy of the poster arrived at The Guardian offices, with an anonymous hand-written note saying: “Councils are trying to keep this quiet.” The posters – several have been posted round the park – warn of a small crocodile-like creature living in Millers Pond, which is thought to be an escaped pet which has thrived due to the recent hot weather.’ It signs off with: “Important: do not approach creature.”‘

A council spokesman said: ‘The sign is obviously a spoof sign put there by a prankster and is not an official Croydon Council notice.’

This fiasco emerged from the September of 2003 but died down rapidly, but it did echo a similar incident which took place in Finchley, North London in 1996. On this occasion an off duty RSPCA Inspector was walking his Labrador dog along a stream at Dollis Brook, when his dog decided to go for a wade and a splash, only to return with quite a catch, the decomposing remains of what appeared to be a crocodile measuring around five-feet in length. The corpse was sent to London Zoo but no further information emerged.

Another similar dead end was also reached in the hunt for the alleged freshwater shark said to have clamped its jaws around the foot of a Jenny Pickles as she swam in a reservoir south east of Heathrow Airport in 1997. The woman kicked out at the unseen predator and swam to shore where her wounds were examined by a marine biologist who concluded that a shark had taken a nip at her. Of course, most freshwater sharks are reasonably small and mild-mannered, except the Bull shark, but in my opinion there was more chance of the attack coming from a big catfish or a pike.

In March of 1962 a three-foot long lizard-like creature was run over by a car in Friern Road, East Dulwich, south-east London. RSPCA officers were quick to arrive on the scene and concluded that the animal was nothing like they’d seen before! A zoological expert from London Zoo also looked at the animal and he too commented that the sandy-coloured reptile was like no other species. Yet, despite the intriguing find, it is alleged that the reptile was buried somewhere in the leafy suburbs. Shame.

Image by Tambako the Jaguar courtesy of Flickr