THE IDEA of a crocodile running loose in a reservoir in Troodos might seem like a bit of a joke but there wouldn’t be anything at all funny about it if someone got hurt.
No doubt many people think it’s highly unlikely that Stavroulla Diakou, a 60-year-old woman, really came face to face with such a creature at the bottom of her garden but the fact is the authorities are taking her account seriously and are on the lookout for the large reptile.
The case highlights an issue not much discussed in Cyprus…unless someone spots a crocodile in the mountains of Troodos that is.
According to an environment officer, reports of wild animals being spotted running loose around the island are not that rare, and authorities admit it is becoming a serious problem. Non-indigenous animals, reptiles and insects can pose a serious hazard to the island’s eco system.
The list of animals permitted to be sold as pets in Cyprus is apparently vague, which allows all kinds of wild animals to be brought in. And this is on top of the ones smuggled illegally.
The animal welfare group Kivotos says many of these animals are imported in travel luggage. They’ve seen cases of abandoned snakes, raccoons and kangaroos because the people who bring them in have no clue how to handle them as they grow.
Monkeys are also popular despite the fact they are known to be often disease-ridden and volatile. In the US last year a women was badly mauled by a pet chimp she’d had for 15 years in a sudden attack.
Authorities really need to act on this and not wait until someone gets hurt or dies, which is often the case in Cyprus. For example how many children must die before they seriously clamp down on people holding them on their laps in the passenger seat?
How many foreign workers will have to die on building sites before something is done about health and safety?
Exotic pets on the loose may sound like something trivial compared to these examples but it can’t be dismissed either, even if it’s a rarer phenomenon. One of Stavroulla Diakou’s five young grandchildren could just as easily have been the one to come across the reptile at the bottom of the garden, and the outcome may not have been pretty.
There have apparently been many accounts of people bringing in exotic pets with no idea how to handle them. In a country where hundreds of dogs and cats are abandoned every year because their owners decide they are too much trouble to look after, the thought of these irresponsible people owning untamed exotic animals is not exactly reassuring.
