D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
June 2008
Leapin' Lizards!
Las Cruces' Awesome Reptiles store caters to those who prefer their pets cold-blooded.
By Jeff Berg
The little mouse must have known that her time was short. Small, but determined, and perhaps a tad brighter than her fellow rodents, she escaped during the night, knowing that otherwise her fate would be to become a meal for a hungry snake or lounging lizard. So what did she have to lose?
 |
Mike Daniels, who co-owns Awesome
Reptiles with his wife, Tina Daniels, shows off one of the larger snakes
he has in stock at his shop on Solano Drive in Las Cruces. (Photo by Donna Clayton Lawder) |
Perhaps slipping through the bars of the cage, the mouse bid adieu to her fellow cellmates, who were already too intimidated by their surroundings to take the risk. For them the bars of the cage offered a form of faux safety, clean water and fresh food every day. Who knew, or wanted to know, what lay beyond?
Fortune was with her as she scurried across the floor of the shop, looking for an opening of some kind that she could slide her tiny body through, maybe to the relative safety of the great outdoors.
Alas, it was not to be. Zigging when she should have been zagging, the mouse soon found herself wedged under a display case, unable to squeeze her lithe little torso either north or south.
And this is how the owner of Awesome Reptiles, Mike Daniels, found the mouse — thanks to the aroma that ensued shortly after her demise.
Daniels' shop is spotlessly clean, and during our interview time, Daniels and an employee named Cruz were very distracted by the hidden corpse of the little mouse fugitive. They searched high and low for the olfactory offender. When discovered at last, the mouse did not receive a "Christian burial," but was rather unceremoniously disposed of in the store's dumpster.
Mike Daniels and his wife, Tina, have run the small but intriguing Awesome Reptiles store in Las Cruces since the fall of 2007. It is a part-time endeavor for Mike, a US Navy veteran who works full-time as a city of Las Cruces firefighter, juggling that schedule with Tina's, while also raising three children. Tina has also just sold off the last of some pedigree Yorkie pups, but has kept one, which will be the newest member of the household.
Mike and Tina do rely on several part-time employees, such as Cruz, who has a number of fascinating pets himself, including ball and carpet pythons and a black-throat monitor lizard. But he, too, has another job, and is sometimes not able to help keep the getting-busier store open as often as Mike would like.
"It was a childhood fascination," Mike Daniels explains when asked, "Why snakes?" "I had a friend who was big on snakes when I was growing up, and that's how I started working with the exotic stuff."
Exotic indeed. Within the walls of Awesome Reptiles live more than 200 well-tended reptiles, representing 40 to 50 species, which include ball pythons, black Mexican king snakes, red-tail boa constrictors, bearded dragons and golden tegus. In the back room are incubators to help hatch even more. And of course, there are also the species that are used for breakfast, lunch or dinner for said creatures.
One of the largest rattlesnakes that Mike Daniels has ever met also resides here, a five-and-half footer that he describes as "big and probably the meanest one I have ever seen." The rattler was rescued from an ill-informed citizen who found it, captured it and kept it for a while, probably too long for it to be successfully re-released into the wild. Daniels says, "I'm keeping it now for a display of local reptiles that we will open later on. I'm just waiting approval from the city."
Daniels' work with reptiles does not stop with the sale of them at his store. He does free outreach programs to area schools and day cares. He will do reptile rescue if the timing is right; otherwise, he advises those with an uninvited guest to call animal control — never try to kill or handle rattlesnakes yourself. He has even hosted reptile-themed children's birthday parties.
"It is mostly done as an educational tool," he says as he holds up a beautifully marked Arizona king snake, which will probably end up being about two feet long when fully grown. "We take a variety of animals to the party and explain to the kids about reptiles and the good things that they do.
"The city and animal control have been very supportive of the educational programs," he adds.
Daniels can also diagnose some of the ailments of reptiles, but is not a veterinarian, of course.
Not to fear, none of Awesome Reptiles' merchandise is poisonous. (That rattler is not for sale.) Daniels refuses to deal in venomous reptiles, even though in New Mexico, there are few if any laws to keep people from doing so. Laws do exist regulating the "taking" or collecting of native reptile species, including a form of commercial license. But otherwise, breeders and hobbyists are allowed to buy, sell, raise and breed almost anything.
A customer has come in, a gentleman who flashes a badge of some kind before he leaves. He's here to see if Daniels is interested in consigning a coastal carpet python that the man needs to find a new home for. It seems he has rescued the python from a previous owner who wanted to be shed of it as grew larger and became less "cute" and more aggressive.
Daniels is a bit hesitant at first, but seems to read between the lines as the man — whose slightly macho posturing seems false — hints that this is the creature's last chance at life. And in captivity, that could be a long time, as pythons can live 15-20 years. Cruz notes later that he has read about a similar snake that holds the record for longevity at 45.
Finally, Daniels agrees to take the former pet. The man says he will bring the python next Sunday.
The market for reptiles is pretty much like that for more common pets such as pups or kittens, Daniels says, although more "novelty" driven. The idea of owning a mountain king snake might sound "cool" to many, but "cool" doesn't last forever.
"They get them when they are young or small because they are 'cute,'" Daniels says. "But they don't realize that they will grow and have to be cared for and once that happens, the excitement of having such a pet goes away."
Such seems to be the case of the aforementioned coastal carpet python. The current owner notes that the previous owner got rid of the snake when it wasn't "fun" anymore.
Daniels adds that iguanas, even though they are more familiar than most reptiles, do not make good pets, so he doesn't carry them. "They can be aggressive and they are large, and don't do well in captivity and have a lot of medical issues," he says. "They are always a 'work in progress' for anyone who has one."
1 | 2 | ALL