Fisherman searches Benton lake for lizard

BENTON, Ill. -- It wasn't bass or bluegill Robert Thomas was looking for as he cast his fishing line into Lake Moses near this Southern Illinois town Monday. It was a 6-feet-long, 20-pound Asian water lizard named Joanna.

"She's here somewhere, and I'm gonna get her," said Thomas, 42, as he stood on the shore of the small, private lake the reptile has called home since escaping from her owner's back yard June 18.

Although people who fish or pass the bucolic lake have reported seeing the creature poke its head out of the murky water or scamper along a shoreline road, no one has been able to catch it.

Thomas, an avid fisherman, came closer than anyone Friday, when he said Joanna bit his fishing line and held on for four hours.

Franklin County sheriff's deputies, a representative from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the animal's owner ran a boat to the struggling reptile and grabbed the fishing line, but it broke when they tugged it, Thomas said. Joanna slipped under a blanket of lily pads and out of sight again.

"I was mad," Thomas said. "I wanted to catch it so I could get some endorsements from a rod and reel company."

Franklin County Sheriff Bill Wilson says it's the owner's job to catch the animal. Wilson said he is not concerned about catching the reptile.

"I get more complaints about dogs than I have about that lizard," he said.

People can keep reptiles as pets in Illinois if they're not poisonous or life-threatening, and Asian water monitors are not, said Carroll Imig, who heads the Bureau of Animal Welfare for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

It doesn't matter if the animal is as large as Joanna is, Imig said, they're still considered safe.

Still, "they can get kind of wicked with their tails," he said.

Owner Derek Freeman bought the animal for $450 from a Florida dealer eight months ago, he said. He's enjoyed owning pythons and anacondas in the past.

But since Freeman went into his back yard in mid-June to feed Joanna her weekly 9 pounds of raw chicken, and saw her wood-and-wire cage standing empty, the father of three small children has thought differently about owning exotic pets.

Freeman said he'll hire someone to trap Joanna if he can find a shelter to take her in.

"Wild animals belong in the wild," Freeman said. "We shouldn't try to keep them."