Camouflaged Carnivores For Christmas
The New York City police department appears to have stumbled on the next tactic the Animal Uprising plans to use for sneak attacks through the holiday season. We told you about alligators baiting traps with newspapers. We gave timely warnings about alligators disguising themselves as doormats. We've even warned about the deer pretending to be volleyball nets. But this trick is even more insidious.
The carnivorous critters are now gift wrapping themselves and waiting for people to tear open the "present".
On Tuesday, police responding to a 911 call in Starrett City, a public housing complex in Brooklyn, found a two-foot caiman (Spanish for anything "crocodilian," according to one Internet site) in a cardboard box, with a shoelace firmly tied around its jaw.
Not requiring outside help, the 75th Precinct cops gathered up the croc-in-the-box and turned it over to Animal Care & Control, a privately funded organization that handles all manner of animals, wild or domestic, that are lost, injured or in distress.
In this case, "the caiman was cold, and we had to warm it up," said Richard Gentles, director of administration for AC&C. But whoever left it in the box was concerned that nobody got hurt, he said. "It was pretty feisty. The shoestring was double-knotted for safety, like a running shoe."
Gentles said the caiman would be turned over to a licensed wildlife care center on Long Island or in New Jersey that specializes in rehabilitation of reptiles and eventually returned to a natural habitat.
This one is really evil. Who suspects a Christmas present will suddenly eat them? Personally, we here at Blue Crab Boulevard strongly recommend people not open any presents at all this Christmas unless they have been thoroughly checked by a specially trained professional. Oddly enough, we can recommend one! The Blue Crab Inspection Service, LLC just opened for business. Is that fortuitous or what? So send us all those packages and we'll check them for fierce reptile cargo. We'll return them just as soon as we're sure they're safe. It may take quite a while to be sure really valuable presents are perfectly safe. Sorry for the inconvenience.
