'Krikey!' Teen Turns in Six Foot Pet Croc

April 4, 2008

ROANOKE, Va. -- Alligators are one of the usual suspects in the world of illegally kept exotic pets, but this time a Virginia teen has turned in a Nile crocodile he’d been keeping as his pet.

At the pleading of his mother, the six-foot, 100-pound pet Nile crocodile was handed over to officials who have sent the animal to Croc Encounters, a sanctuary in Tampa, Fla.

“He just started out as a pet,” said Laura Paner of Croc Encounters. “They had gotten into this situation where they did have him and they really didn’t know what to do.”

The Roanoke family kept the reptile illegally in a tank.

Generally known as the more aggressive and larger cousin to alligators, Nile crocodiles “have an attitude,” said Dave Orndoff, director of Mill Mountain Zoo. “You would not want to go and pet a crocodile. Crocodiles are aggressive, they would snap at you.”

Nile crocodiles are indigenous only to sub-Saharan Africa, the Nile Basin and Madagascar. Being the largest African crocodilian, they can grow up to 20 feet and are known to be man-eaters.

But on average, the Nile crocs are 16 feet long, which is about four to six feet longer than the average American alligator, which rarely attacks humans.

But these highly dangerous reptiles are on the exotic pet market and can easily be bought online or at exotic pet shows.

Despite their availability, Orndoff cautions that a Nile crocodile “is not a good animal to have as a pet.”

This message has been heard loud and clear in this Virginia household, albeit the hard way.

“It was the mom who urged him to give it up,” said Paner. “I don’t think he was very happy about it, but it was the right thing to do.”

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Robin Wallace, Pet Pulse; WSLS and National Geographic contributed to this article.