Crocodiles in Surrey?
Well, not really. Still, plenty of people were spoofed in June by a strange sight in a marsh near Highway 17 and 104th Avenue. It looked like a crocodile floating around in the water, but was just parts of an old commercial truck tires.
Sightings of coyotes, peacocks, feral rabbits and slithering boa constrictors were the real deal, though.
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(A sign about the missing snake.)
In June, Travis Pete’s pet snake, a five-foot-long boa Albino boa constrictor name Snow, went missing in Fleetwood Park.
READ ALSO: Croc sightings in Surrey? Nope, just a tire, police say
READ ALSO: Missing snake could be in Fleetwood Park
“One of the plastic pieces on the cage that I bought from the store broke off, so it must have gotten loose,” he told the Now-Leader.
Meantime, Sullivan Heights resident Jerry Barr became a new foster daddy after a peacock laid eggs on his front porch and they hatched in June. You could say he was proud as a peacock.
The mother peacock commandeered Barr’s welcome mat, outside his front door, and laid four cream-coloured eggs.
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(The peacock on a Surrey doorstep. Photo: Tom Zytaruk)
Surrey’s peacocks are not indigenous to the city, of course. It’s believed they stayed here after a hobby farm that was their home in the area closed down and the owner moved on.
SEE ALSO: VIDEO: Mama peacock lays four eggs on Surrey doorstep
READ ALSO: Surrey’s peacocks have hatched
When Barr saw the first eggshell, he said, his jaw dropped. “I was so happy. It’s completely crazy, I’ll tell you that.”
Coyote sightings were much less pleasant, however. Frightened mothers reported close calls between their young children and a fearless coyote near Mary Jane Shannon elementary school, and four blocks away at a playground at Holly Park.
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(The problem coyote in Guildford. Photo: Shane Mackichan)
“We’re going to shoot it,” Inspector Murray Smith, of the BC Conservation Officers Service, told the Now-Leader in June. “We’re going to shoot it with a rifle or a shotgun, and destroy it.”
READ ALSO: Surrey coyote to be shot after stalking kids
READ ALSO: Condemned Surrey coyote vanishes
But the condemned coyote seemingly vanished before it could be destroyed.
Meanwhile, feral rabbits flooded Fleetwood in 2017. Rodica Balaj saw her first near 156th Street and 86th Avenue.
“I caught the rabbit,” she told the Now-Leader, “and it was a female, and I cared for her. There are actually lots of rabbits here in Fleetwood; this was the first one that had reached my home.”
READ ALSO: Feral rabbits in Fleetwood causing concern
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A Great Dane named Eclipse pulled on local heartstrings after a passerby found the skeletal dog near Green Timbers Urban Forest on Aug. 21, the day of the solar eclipse.
The emaciated dog was taken to the Surrey Animal Resource Centre, where animal care workers set about mending him.
SEE ALSO: Global tragedies hit home in Surrey in 2017
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