Ciudad Juarez.- Since 2017, residents of different Juarez neighborhoods have reported encounters with nine crocodiles and alligators loose on the streets of the city, according to the newspaper archive.
In eight of the cases, the owners of the alligators have appeared after being detained by municipal authorities. However, in December 2018, after the report of a crocodile trying to cross Juan Pablo II Boulevard, it was not located by the municipal Civil Protection authorities.
Over the past seven years, crocodiles and alligators of all sizes have been found, from babies to specimens measuring one metre and 40 centimetres in length; in seven cases loose on the streets of the city and in two cases as a result of house searches.
This year, at least two crocodiles have been reported captured that have strayed along this border, the last time on Monday after a search operation that lasted almost four days, when members of the Heroic Fire Department managed to secure a crocodile that was approximately eight months old and 80 centimeters long that was wandering through the streets of the Luis Echeverría neighborhood.
On June 17, for example, the municipal Department of Ecology received a young alligator found by a citizen in the Revolución Mexicana neighborhood. The man who found the reptile had already reported the presence of the animal to the authorities. In this case, it was a protected species and its possession was illegal.
The sale of exotic animals has become widespread in pet stores along the border, where Moreletti crocodiles can be found for between 2,200 pesos and even 4,900 pesos.
In 2017, elements of the State Police, the PGR and the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection entered the home located on the corner of Alabama and Montana streets, in the Campestre Arboleda subdivision. A lion cub, three tigers and a crocodile were found in the property.
In 2018, Profepa received a Babilla caiman that the Fire Department captured when the animal was trying to get into a house in the north of the city. It was a male of approximately 1.40 meters and in good physical and health condition.
That same year, in December, the Civil Protection Department failed to find a specimen sighted in the irrigation canal that connects to the Juárez Valley at the height of the Zaragoza international bridge and it was never captured.
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Reptiles become unexpected neighbors
