Officials Say Mystery Creature Just a Big Ol’ Harmless Lizard

A large reptile, which some Balboa Coves residents swear looks like an alligator, is in fact a lizard--big and ugly but no more dangerous than your average iguana, Newport Beach animal control officials said Tuesday.

“It’s not harmful or dangerous to people in any way,” Newport Beach Police Department spokesman Bob Oakley said. He described the thing as “some type of big lizard” about 3 to 4 feet long that eats rodents and insects.

Residents said Newport animal control officials initially identified the creature as a caiman, a Latin American cousin of the alligator.

But Oakley said officials decided Tuesday that it was a lizard after an animal control officer noticed it at Balboa Coves flicking its long tongue in the ocean breeze.

Other features that gave the creature away, Oakley said, were its long legs and agility on land, which is also why the reptile is proving hard to capture, he said.

The thing “was probably someone’s pet that either escaped or was released,” Oakley said.

After officials suggested that it could be a caiman, directors of the Balboa Coves Community Assn. sent a letter to the community’s 68 homes, warning that the creature had been “determined to be a dangerous public nuisance.”

After so much excitement, the official explanation was something of a letdown for at least one Balboa Coves resident.

“I think there are two animals,” Ernest SilcockCQ said. Although he has not seen either one, Silcock said, he has heard reports from residents in one area about a large iguana-like creature. But in another area, he said, residents saw a long-snouted thing they said resembled a caiman. “I went and interviewed them personally and I trust them,” he said.

But then he added that he could see why city officials might wish to discourage reports of alligators.

“It is bad publicity,” he said. “Maybe I should shut up.”