Hunt Ongoing As Giant Lizard Evades Capture In Davie Community

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DAVIE (CBSMiami) – Trappers are hunting a monitor lizard that showed up a couple of weeks ago at a home in the Ridge community of Davie.

Zach Lieberman's wife spotted the thing out the patio door.

"She started screaming and I'm thinking what's going on," Lieberman recalled on Wednesday.  He took a look at the creature by the door and went around the house to shoo the large lizard away. But the reptile turned the tables on him.

"He followed me. He followed me from right here all the way out to the front of my house," Lieberman said of the lizard that wasn't backing down.

Monitor lizards are known to be aggressive, have sharp teeth and claws, and could knock a small animal like a raccoon or cat or dog or other living things unconscious with its powerful tail and swallow them whole.

"It didn't occur to me how dangerous he really was and how close and encounter I was actually getting into until after the fact," Lieberman said. He estimates the lizard to be longer than 6 feet and well over 100 pounds.

Wildlife officers put out a big trap in Lieberman's backyard, with dead mice as lures, but the rascally reptile hasn't taken the bait.

"That cage, to be honest, it's probably a little bit too small for him," Lieberman said.

Officers have put out smaller cages too in the event the big lizard has little brothers or sisters about.

"It's a big animal that you don't see every day, and that shouldn't be here in the first place," Lieberman said.

People buy the things as pets and often release them when they get to be too much pet to handle.

The big monster of a monitor lizard that has paid several visits to his home has left Lieberman fearful.

"For my kids, they are scared, my wife's scared, and I am scared because now I know what it's actually capable of," Lieberman said.

Monitor lizards are capable of inflicting serious harm, not only to animals and people, but also to the ecology as they upset the natural scheme of things.

Among their favorite treats are crocodile eggs. Crocodiles are a protected species.