How to prevent being in the next 'When Animals Attack!' show

By James Fuller

Where does a 400-pound alligator sleep? Possibly in the basement of the home next door.

That may not be a problem unless it gets out and comes wandering down the street, or the owner decides he doesn't want to keep it as a pet anymore.

Rob Carmichael encountered just such an alligator one day in Lake County when he was called in to help remove it.

"He was a pretty aggressive alligator, too," Carmichael recalled. "This one would just as soon eat someone for dinner as anything else."

Carmichael works with state and local animal control agencies to relocate animals that suddenly appear in public and may be many miles from their natural habitat. Alligators are an extreme example of creatures suburbanites might encounter, but the warm months of the spring and summer are the busy period for animal control phone lines.

Animal experts throughout the suburbs urge caution whenever an unfamiliar animal is encountered. Such encounters can include the baby bobcat caught in the pallets of a truck a few weeks ago in Kane County, or the python in Lake County that crawled into a bathtub through an open window, or the wallaby once found in DuPage County.

"Do not go near them. Do not approach them. Do not try to touch them," advised Lauren Bluestone about any unfamiliar animal. Bluestone is an animal control officer in Kane County. "Your best bet is to err on the side of caution."

Something as simple as a snapping turtle can actually bite a human hand clean off if the animal is big enough. But even the family pet can be dangerous when it's been abandoned by its family.

Such unusual animal encounters have increased as a byproduct of the housing finance mess. Animal control officers said they are getting called out to homes abandoned in foreclosure or eviction situations more frequently than ever before because pets have either been left behind or animals have invaded the empty spaces.

"It's crazy busy right now," said Kerry Vinkler, executive director of DuPage County Animal Care & Control. "I honestly don't understand why people just abandon these animals. People need to know that it's literally a crime if you've knowingly abandoned a pet.

"The problem is we can't even enter these properties for a certain period of time unless we get a complaint from somebody. Meanwhile, the animals are trapped in there."

Animal control experts are also tracking a notable increase in is rabid bats. Experts in DuPage, Kane and Lake Counties all said they are seeing more rabid bats, and they are appearing earlier in the year. The DuPage animal control staff is keeping an eye on skunk and raccoon populations as rabies has been found in those animals in nearby states.

Len Hackl, coordinator of rabies control for Lake County Animal Care and Control, said rabies, especially in bats, tends to appear in cycles. Nine rabid bats were found in Lake County last year. Four have been found this year so far with August and September tending to be the months where they find the most rabies cases. In years past, the county would encounter maybe two rabid bats the whole year.

"We've sent 75 to the lab already this year to be checked," Hackl said. "We found a rabid bat at a house in Lake Villa for the second time this year. That's the first time that's ever happened."

One type of encounter local animal control agencies haven't substantiated is cougar sightings. After the April shooting of a 150-pound cougar in Chicago, local animal control agencies said they've all received multiple reports of sightings, but not a single one has yielded any evidence that cougars are stalking through the local landscape.

Coyotes, turtles, snakes and birds of prey are more commonly encountered because they lived naturally in the area before the suburbs ever existed. Experts said that's another reason why such animals shouldn't be approached. A snapping turtle plodding down a cul-de-sac probably isn't lost or sick; it's just moving from one nesting or feeding site to another.

Capturing or confining an animal, even for its own safety, is generally a bad idea, experts say. A person bit by an animal may want to keep it for rabies testing, but even then, experts warn against it because any attempted capture typically results only in another bite.

The first and usually only step to take in an animal encounter is calling police or animal control. Depending on the animal, they'll ensure it is either relocated or taken to an agency equipped to care for it.

That's how Carmichael ended up with about two dozen of the 250 reptiles that live at the Wildlife Discovery Center in Lake Forest.

Carmichael said the most rampant problem he sees contributing to dangerous animal encounters is people who have exotic pets they aren't equipped to deal with, so they let them loose in the wild. Other times animals escape from people or businesses that actually are licensed and trained to care for them like the lion and the tiger that roamed the streets of Libertyville one day.

"We've pulled venomous snakes out of people's houses," Carmichael said. "I've gone kayaking after small crocodilians on the Fox River. It's kind of scary. There's never a dull moment in this job."