AR-News: Apartment ‘zoo’ too smelly for neighbors

[jim robertson]

Apartment ‘zoo’ too smelly for neighbors
Woman kept 200 creatures, said she fed them roadkill The Associated Press
Updated: 7:51 a.m. ET May  06, 2004GERMANTOWN, Wis.

- It was a stench of decay that caused authorities to search an apartment in 
suburban Milwaukee.

They found a residence crawling with life: About 200 creatures — including 
alligators, scorpions and carnivorous beetles — formed a bizarre menagerie 
kept alive by a woman who fed them roadkill.

“The smell was just unbelievable,” said William Mitchell, a state 
conservation warden who found about 70 ducks cramped in a basement pen with 
droppings covering the floor. “It was really stinking. ... It made my eyes 
water.”

Neighbors had complained about the foul smell.

Animal carcasses were in a freezer, and decaying carcasses were in an 
adjacent garage. Among the dead animals were raccoons, rabbits, opossums and 
squirrels.

Jamie Verburgt, the apartment resident, was given two state citations for 
possessing game animals out of season, Mitchell said.

“She said they were car kills,” Mitchell said. “I warned her that it is 
illegal to take dead animals off the side of a road. ... The dead animals 
were used to feed the live animals, and some were given to flesh-eating 
beetles.”

Among the other live animals found were snakes, rats, turtles and toads.

The live animals were seized by the Washington County Humane Society, 
pending investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Mitchell said federal wildlife officials plan to investigate those who sold 
animals to Verburgt through the Internet.

“She intended to sell the animals to pet stores,” he said.

Verburgt’s boyfriend, John Walters, was prosecuted in 2000 for mistreatment 
of exotic animals.

At that time, police found a female cougar, female leopard, silver-tailed 
fox, monitor lizard, two caracals, a coatimundi, chinchilla and a 
reticulated python in Walter’s apartment in Greenfield, another Milwaukee 
suburb.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be 
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4914621/


"Just remember it's the birds that's supposed to suffer, not the hunter." 
—George W. Bush, advising quail hunter and New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, 
Roswell, N.M., Jan. 22, 2004