A Colorado man who died after being bitten by a Gila monster was hardly the only one to have the gnarled-looking lizard as a pet.
They are legal to own in most states, easily found through breeders and at reptile shows, and are widely regarded for their striking color patterns and typically easy-going personality.
But while Friday’s death of 34-year-old Christopher Ward may have been the first of a Gila monster in the U.S. in nearly a century, the creature’s bite is known to be excruciating — and venomous. For that reason, some question the wisdom of keeping the species as a pet.
“It’s like having your hand slammed shut and stuck in a car door,” Arizona State University professor Dale DeNardo said of the lizard’s bite. “Even that initial pain lasts for an hour. Then you get the typical days of pain, throbbing pain. It is far worse than any bee, wasp or scorpion.”
DeNardo, a Gila monster enthusiast who has studied the reptiles for decades, said he wouldn’t even want one in his home.
Within minutes after Ward’s pet lizard named Winston bit his hand without letting go, Ward vomited and couldn’t breathe, according to a report from the animal control officer who interviewed his girlfriend.
He was put on life support but did not survive and died less than four days after the bite.
Ward’s girlfriend told animal shelters that they bought Winston at a reptile show in Denver in October and another Gila monster named Potato from a breeder in Arizona in November. She surrendered the lizards to be taken to a reptile sanctuary in South Dakota after the bite.
Colorado requires a permit to keep a Gila monster (pronounced HE-la). However, only zoological facilities receive such permits, and Ward apparently did not have one for his lizards, said Kara Van Hoose, spokesperson for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
By being sold at a reptile show, Winston may have slipped through the cracks of state enforcement. Colorado Department of Natural Resources agents sometimes attend shows to ensure illegal animals are not for sale.
“It happens sometimes,” says Van Hoose. “We confiscated a few.”
Online, breeders sell Gila monsters for $1,200 and more after the young emerge in the fall. While it’s possible that some people capture wild Gila monsters to keep as pets, DeNardo says the biggest threats to the reptiles are roads and habitat loss due to home construction.
The lizards’ natural habitat extends from northern Mexico through Arizona to parts of California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. Although the declining population is sometimes considered a concern – perhaps several thousand in the wild – Gila monsters are not protected as an endangered species.
States like Maine and Kentucky prohibit keeping Gila monsters as pets, while others, like Montana, don’t even require a permit. Many states fall in between and require a permit to keep the animals.
One of those permit holders is Colorado Gators, a reptile sanctuary and tourist attraction not far from Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in rural southern Colorado. The facility with a source of naturally warm groundwater takes in alligators and other rescued, confiscated and abandoned reptiles, including a Gila monster after the death of a pet store owner.
Owner Jay Young counts himself among the Gila monster fans.
“Only certain people should have them, of course, and in places where they can legally have them,” Young said. ‘But they’re just cute. Just look at that little face. One of the cutest lizards, for sure.”
They can live for at least 20 years on a diet of small rodents and quail eggs, in a small 57- to 76-gallon aquarium, Young said.
In the wild, Gila monsters spend as much as 95% of the time underground to conserve water in warm, dry weather, and come out more often in wet weather, DeNardo said.
Because of their size, up to 56 centimeters, Gila monsters travel widely, ranging over an area as large as 100 or more American football fields, in search of prey, including bird eggs in nests high in cacti. To get there, they conserve energy and keep a slow but steady pace for a lizard.
Because they are slow, they rely on their painful venom for defense, often letting out a warning hiss before striking.
“It’s never by accident,” DeNardo said. “You gotta mess with them.”
Before Ward, the last person to die from a Gila monster bite around 1930 may have had cirrhosis of the liver, DeNardo said. A forthcoming autopsy report may reveal whether the venom from Ward’s lizard killed him outright or whether an underlying condition, such as an allergy, was a factor.
“I strongly suspect this will be similar,” DeNardo said, “that this person had an underlying cause that made them more susceptible.”