The Brabant Noord-Oost animal ambulance received a report of an exotic animal in Reek on Saturday evening. A family found a wall lizard on the pot of a mandarin tree they ordered from Asia. To their great surprise, the protected animal had traveled all the way.
The lizard was then taken by the animal ambulance to the Regional Animal Shelter in Ravenstein. The animal is now in quarantine there, says Rens van Lieshout of the animal ambulance. “The animal is doing well.”
“But we want to make sure that the animal doesn’t bring any nasty diseases or anything like that with it,” he adds. “The lizard will then go to a specialized shelter. In any case, the animal will remain in the Netherlands and will not return to Asia.”
“If they are well packaged, you may be surprised when you get home.”
The animal ambulance regularly collects an exotic animal. “We see it often. Animals such as a scorpion or tarantula that travel with people. If they are well packaged, you can sometimes be surprised when you get home.”
Some exotic animals are sometimes not handed over to an animal ambulance and are then released into our nature by people. “But people shouldn’t do that,” says van Lieshout.
“It is not the intention that these types of exotic species are released and allowed to reproduce.”
An animal that does not originally come from here may not be able to survive in these conditions. “It is not the intention that these types of exotic species are released and allowed to reproduce.”
An example of such an exotic species that was probably once released into Dutch nature is the American crayfish. “These animals that do not originally belong here can be harmful to our own flora and fauna. So if you find such an animal, you should always contact us.”
