ABQ zoo’s ‘nuisance’ crocodiles see mayor as savior — or not?

Future billboard material? (Photos by David Alire Garcia)

ALBUQUERQUE — The Rio Grande Zoo will soon have two new poster boys.

According to the city’s top administrator responsible for the zoo, July 12 will mark the first time the general public can catch a glimpse of the two enormous, saltwater crocodiles that have been in the zoo’s possession since April 1, 2005.

But the more than four-year lapse between acquisition and temporary public viewing set to begin next month raises questions.

Why spend more than $85,000 to acquire the largest reptile in the world — two of them — and keep them in a back warehouse without an exhibit for so long?

Why recently announce an “initial” public viewing for next month when a couple weeks earlier, the reptile curator wasn’t even aware of the plans?

And did NMI inquires into the animals history have anything to do with the viewing now set to begin July 12?

“The mayor doesn’t wait,” Deborah James, Mayor Martin Chavez’s spokeswoman, told NMI on Friday. James added that the mayor has been pushing for expedited public viewing of the crocodiles for months.

Ray Darnell, the mayor-appointed director of the Cultural Services Department that oversees the zoo, confirms James’ account.

“The mayor saying — ‘Can you do something to help get these guys on exhibit? — that’s really what prompted it,” Darnell, the former zoo director, said in an interview last week. “This was ongoing. It just happened that you had an idea to talk about this in the middle.”

Four years, three months of waiting…

But two weeks earlier, during a tour of the zoo’s reptile house, curator Dale Belcher said there was “not currently” any plans to exhibit the approximately 15-feet long, 1,200-pound crocodiles.

Back in 2005, according to documents provided to NMI through a public records request, the city was initially predicting a 2006 exhibit.

That didn’t happen.

“We’re still probably 18 months from finishing their exhibit,” Darnell added. “The actual steel for the building and those things is sitting at the site right now.”

Darnell explained that blueprints for the re-designed exhibit, including an underwater viewing component, are currently in the hands of  the architect. Meanwhile, the crocodiles are housed in a building that used to be used as a fish-growing facility.

“The crocs are in a great holding facility,” Darnell continued. “They do what they do in the wild. They’re hanging out in the water. They’ve grown. They’ve prospered. Everything is fine. So it was a deliberate act to wait.”

But Darnell wasn’t able to explain why Belcher, the zoo’s reptile curator since 1979, wasn’t aware of plans for the public viewing scheduled for next month.

James, however, did have an explanation.

“The mayor tells (department) directors to do things and very honestly, people underneath that level may not know. This is what I’m seeing,” she explained. “I think Ray was waiting until they had some major exhibit put together and the mayor said, ‘No we need something in the interim to have some public viewing.’ We had to do something on an interim basis.”

Referring to the mayor, James added: “He had been asking about the crocodiles for sometime in our directors’ meeting, as long as six months ago.”

Asked why the crocodile exhibit hadn’t been built over the last four years, the zoo’s mammals curator Lyn Tupa, cites delays and escalating prices.

“A lot of it is getting the blueprints up. There’s always delays,” she explained. Tupa said that building materials like concrete have doubled in price over the last few years, and that the zoo also has to prioritize maintenance not just new exhibits.

“We have to make sure we’re keeping up on repairs as opposed to building. We’re trying to manage a lot under small number of staff and money.” The payoff with a redesigned exhibit, she emphasized, will be noticeable.

“It’s gonna be a better exhibit,” she said.

‘The primordial human nightmare’

Late last month, Belcher showed NMI the warehouse where the saltwater crocodiles have been housed since early 2005.

Entering the warehouse, the two croc holding areas come into view beyond a thick metal fence. Each male crocodile was lounging, very comfortably it seemed, in a rectangular pool built into the middle of plain concrete slabs.

Reptile curator, Dale Belcher

According to Belcher, an expert at managing large reptile collections, the two separated male crocodiles are named after the truck drivers — Joe and John — who transported the animals from Los Angeles to Albuquerque.

The pair were acquired at a cost of $85,855.78, according to city records. That figure includes purchase of the crocodiles in Australia, consultant fees, special crates, transit insurance, airfare to Los Angeles and then trucking to Albuquerque.

The two crocs were apparently ”causing problems for someone around Darwin,” most likely attacking boats in the northern Australian port city, Belcher said. He added that the pair had been dubbed “nuisance crocodiles.”

On the recent tour, one of the saltwater crocodiles, Joe, approached the edge of the fence as he saw movement just beyond it.

“It’s the primordial human nightmare for a lot of people,” Belcher remarked.

Asked what the enormous animals eat, Belcher pulls out of a nearby refrigerator one of the whole chickens the animals are regularly fed. He explains that each animal consumes between one and two percent of its body weight per week.

“We’re not allowed to let them eat reporters,” Belcher deadpanned. “Or anybody.”

The Rio Grande Zoo’s most fearsome predators may not look the part given their languishing ways in climate-controlled pools.

But apparently, like a mayor determined to get out in front of even a minor story, corcodylus porosus can move exceptionally fast with explosive bursts of speed when needed.

Come July 12, first-time visitors will likely be hoping to see these extra-large reptiles show off their quickness.

Or at least chomp down hard on a whole chicken.

Either way, it should be a good show.

Many thanks to KNME’s Antony Lostetter for his work on the above video, originally part of New Mexico In Focus’s June 19 broadcast, as well as Dylan Sheriff and Melissa Wike.