Slithery crimes

It’s unfair to compare criminals to reptiles, considering the reptiles have been the victims of late.

At the Tijuana airport, a sharp-eyed passenger alerted authorities that a package marked “turtles” was not… as labeled painted turtles (legal to export, but illegal in several countries where they have become an invasive species) but iguanas.

173 Mexico City police officers were deployed in a raid on the Emiliano Carranza market in Mexico City in search of contraband reptiles.  They rescued 23 crocodiles, 74 turtles, 33 iguanas, and a python.  Also 20 pejelargartos… which are a fish, though they look like a crocodile (hence the name… “lizard-fish”) and wouldn’t seem to make all that great a pet.  They are, however, also the nickname for Andres Manuel López Obrador, who, like the pejelargarto, is native to Tabasco.  I have the sense they weren’t being sold for pets. The crocs were malnourished, and are now being fattened up for return to the wild. No report on the fate of the freed fish… certainly they’d be a minority taste, but this is usually what happens to them:

In less finny-scaly news, a caracara (Mexican eagle) was hit by a government car in rural Jalisco, but has been sent to an Aguascalientes animal rehab center, where the wildlife biologist responsible for the bird’s treatment, has said the prognosis is for a full recovery.