Animal control officers on Thursday discovered a congregation of alligators and a nest of venomous snakes inside a Thousand Oaks home where twice in the last three years a cobra has gotten loose and terrorized neighbors, officials said.
Just eight weeks ago, the homeowner’s next-door neighbor spotted a cobra slithering onto the property. The neighbor responded by driving a car over the snake, killing it, said Don Barre, a spokeswoman for the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control.
Investigators determined the snake had come from the home next door, where in 2014, an albino monocled cobra had escaped and eluded capture for days while keeping locals on edge. That snake ultimately was captured but not before biting a 7-year-old whippet named Teko.
Hoping to avoid another incident, animal control officers and local authorities served search warrants Thursday morning on a property in Thousand Oaks and a rural address just outside the city limits.
Inside a murky pool on the Thousand Oaks property, officers found eight crocodilians, each 2 to 3 feet long, Barre said. County animal control director Marcia Mayeda said they were American alligators.
Investigators had to drain the pool to see whether other predators were lurking at the bottom.
Elsewhere on the property a nest of snakes, some venomous, were found, Barre said.
The owners have permits to possess dangerous and highly regulated reptiles, but they appeared to be in violation of the rules, authorities said.
“It appears that, despite the multiple levels of permits, approvals, and periodic inspections required, the permit holder was housing deadly venomous snakes in an unauthorized, densely populated, residential neighborhood, and in such a manner that they posed a substantial risk to public safety,” the Department of Animal Care and Control said in a statement.
The permit holders appeared to be hobbyists, officials said. It was not immediately clear whether they would be arrested or charged with a crime.
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