A fight between two brothers in an apartment near Wasilla resulted in arrests for both on charges including animal cruelty after each threw the other’s pet reptile out into the snow, Alaska State Troopers said.
An alligator was rescued but a crocodile is still missing and presumed dead from exposure, troopers said Thursday. It’s legal in Alaska to keep both alligators and crocodiles as pets, though reptile experts say the animals can be difficult to keep as they grow larger.
Troopers said they responded to a report of a disturbance at an apartment near Wasilla just after 7 p.m. Wednesday. The person making the report, 30-year-old Rickey Lowe, drove about 5 miles to his workplace in Wasilla after getting into a shoving match with his 33-year-old brother, Tyler Lowe, according to a sworn affidavit filed with charges by troopers Sgt. Matthew Sidders.
Troopers said interviews with both brothers revealed the chain of events: Tyler Lowe threw his brother’s pet alligator outside into the snow, they said, and then Rickey Lowe did the same with his brother’s pet crocodile.
The alligator was 18 inches long and the crocodile was 2 feet long, a troopers spokesman said.
Rickey Lowe, interviewed at his place of work, told troopers the brothers got into a fight and then Tyler Lowe trashed the apartment, according to the affidavit. Tyler Lowe was upset and looking for his crocodile when troopers arrived at the apartment, it said.
“The temperature was approximately 30 degrees, there was snow and ice on the ground, and both brothers knew it was too cold for the reptiles to survive outside,” Sidders wrote.
Troopers found the alligator behind some landscaping rocks, he wrote. “We were at the location for over an hour, but didn’t locate the crocodile. There were several sheds and vehicles we simply weren’t able to get under to look. We used flashlights and thermal devices to search the area and spoke to several neighbors, but the crocodile was not located.”
Tyler Lowe is facing misdemeanor charges of fourth-degree assault and cruelty to animals. Rickey Lowe is facing misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence, endangering the welfare of a child and cruelty to animals. Both were in custody at Mat-Su Pretrial Facility on Thursday.
Owning alligators and crocodiles is not as uncommon in Alaska as people might think, said Jonathan Huntington, founder of Jonathan’s Reptiles, a Wasilla-based nonprofit.
“It is legal,” Huntington said Thursday. “Should it be? That’s a discussion for another time.”
She said the group has been contacted about a half-dozen times over the years by troopers trying to find a home for an alligator, crocodile or caiman, though they have not been contacted about this particular incident.
People often get them small, she said. “Once they hit that 3- or 4-foot mark, that’s when we start getting phone calls: They’ve been turned loose, their bathtub isn’t big enough.”
Huntington noted that alligators, which have been found alive in frozen water with just their noses exposed, tend to be more cold-tolerant than crocodiles. If the crocodile involved in Wednesday night’s fight is still alive, it’s moving very slowly and will probably need veterinary care if found, Huntington said.
“Poor thing,” she said.