Politic?

Animals and their Possessors

"There's an awful lot of animals in there. It's kind of cluttery inside so it makes it difficult to do this safely. We don't want these animals. We're just helping out."
Bry Loyst, Indian River Reptile Zoo, Ontario

A lot of experts in the field of reptile zoo management are helping out. They know how best to handle snakes, crocodiles, alligators and other creatures that should be left where nature has placed them. Alternately, taken to zoos where zookeepers are skilled and practised in tending to their needs. Canada's Accredited Zoos and Aquariums, the single nationally recognized body in the country granting zoo accreditation, stated that Reptile Ocean' owner Jean-Claude Savoie had never requested accreditation.

The New Brunswick Natural Resources Department had no idea that a python was being kept in an apartment. The Reptile Ocean's owner may never have asked for accreditation, knowing it would be denied him. Or he simply thought that it was unnecessary, a complication in his business life he could dispense with. Because possibly he felt he was sufficiently knowledgeable and therefore assured that nothing would ever go awry.

"There are quite a few animals here", said Bruce Dougan, manager of the Magnetic Hill Zoo in Moncton, N.B. He was also there, at the request of the province's Natural Resources Department. To aid in the identification and removal process. Particularly of the sixteen animals the shop hadn't acquired permits for, to make their accommodation there perfectly legal. Mr. Dougan identified four large American alligators, six crocodiles, some tortoises, turtles and snakes.

Preliminary autopsy results on the corpses of of four-year-old Noah Barthe and his six-year old brother Connor, found dead in an apartment above the Reptile Ocean store, confirmed death by asphyxiation. A 45-kilogram African rock python had escaped its glass enclosure located in the room next to where the little boys were sleeping. The snake had made its way into the ventilation system, but its weight had collapsed the ceiling, dropping it into the room the children occupied that night.

According to those in the know, African rock snakes bite prey before constricting their bodies, damaging muscle tissue and causing cardiac arrest, and finally death, before swallowing the victim; and that snake was of a sufficient size to do just that. A casual letter-to-the-editor commenter who had personal experience living in Zambia as a member of its Wildlife Conservation Society, had what appears to be the best explanation yet.

Derek Wilson of Port Moody, British Columbia wrote: "I expect the inquest into the tragedy in Campbellton, N.B. will find that the boys were not strangled by the snake twining around them. Instead, I think that the snake simply curled up on top of one boy, seeking to share his body heat (snakes are cold-blooded creatures). The weight of the snake on the boy's chest could have caused asphyxiation and prevented the boy from calling out or fleeing. With this source of warmth extinguished, the snake may have moved to the other sleeping boy, where the same tragic circumstances could have played out."

Makes sense; no bite marks appear to have been found, the boys may not have been crushed through constriction; the snake merely did what nature equipped it to do as part of its autonomic survival instinct; find a source of warmth to comfort itself. What makes no sense entirely is that the owner of these exotic animals felt quite confident that whatever he was doing was just fine and dandy.

Noah Barth with a snake

The mother of the two little boys had enjoyed posting photographs on her Facebook account of her two little boys; handling snakes comfortably, cleaning out a huge glass aquarium used to house reptiles, obviously feeling she was exposing them to a valuable appreciation for wildlife. But that's just the problem; they are 'wild' life, and we are domesticated life, and the two do not go together all that well, sometimes occasioning tragedy.