Animal Instincts

It wasn’t the badge he originally envisioned himself wearing. But to Marcus Nieto, there’s nothing quite like apprehending suspects of the four-legged kind and putting stray critters behind bars--at least until he can help find them the right home.

Nieto, Mission Viejo’s most veteran animal control officer, never knows quite what he’ll end up facing when the phone rings.

Many of his calls come from the fringes of the city, where suburban development meets wildlife habitat. He spends more time confronting snakes, coyotes, possums and bobcats than he does any household dog or cat.

Most often, the animals are just doing what comes naturally and he tries to get them back to where they can do that without alarming their human neighbors.

“We get snakes, lots of them,” says Nieto, 42. Last summer, there were 75 snake-related calls. “But most were the gopher-variety garden snakes--the good kind,” he adds.

That’s a fact that did little to reassure one family last year, when a snake slithered out of their refrigerator door’s ice dispenser. Even Nieto admits the call was “really strange.” But “it all turned out OK,” he says.

While Nieto initially imagined himself fighting crime or fires, he got sidetracked by a job with animal control services in his hometown of Long Beach. Working with animals proved to be a natural match.

“Something was telling me this is it,” Nieto recalls. “I love wildlife.”

In 1992, he was hired as Mission Viejo’s first commissioned animal control officer and still wears Badge No. 1.

Nieto figures he’s got just about the perfect job--”I get to be outside . . . with room to breathe”--with the added perk of being able to visit schools and talk to children about animal safety and respect.

His idea of play is not far off from his days on the job: When he’s not working, he’s still outdoors with the animals--usually riding his horse along local river trails.