Photo by Steven St. JohnTribune

Tribune

Natalie Sathers feeds her pet guinea pigs Tess (middle) and Bella (right) a dinner of carrots, apples and lettuce. Along with dogs and cats, the city animal shelter adopts out "exotic" animals, such as chickens, ferrets and even the occasional alligator. Salters, an assistant principal at Manzano Mesa Elementary School, has helped find homes for numerous such pets through her school.

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Behind the rows of cats and dogs looking for homes, a "barn duck" and a peahen cluck and quack in outdoor pens at the Albuquerque Eastside Animal Care Center.

They're up for adoption, too.

So is a black chicken, several bunnies and 19 baby rats. Or they were during the last week of November.

Exotic animals - anything that's not a dog or cat - are some of the most sought after at the shelter. That could be due to the cost - $2 per for most native species and barn animals - or it could be due to the novelty of such pets, said Lt. Earl Baca, a supervisor with Albuquerque Animal Services.

Get them while they're cheap.

The city is thinking of raising the cost of some of the exotic animals, such as rabbits and ferrets, because their populations are growing and it is expensive to spay and neuter them - which the city started doing this year, said Dee Miller, a registered veterinary technician at the shelter.

"It's more difficult and time consuming," Miller said. "All these exotic animals go horrifically inexpensively. It's just that people don't know we have them here."

That said, the new price that the shelter is considering for rabbits and ferrets - $15 - isn't particularly wallet-killing, either. That's expected to be settled and in place within the next few months.

More animals could soon be added to that list, Miller said.

"We've been talking about spaying the iguanas," she said.

Not that there's an out-of-control iguana population, but the shelter often gets older iguanas that have developed aggressive temperaments.

"We think spaying and neutering them while they're young might help with that," Miller said.

City Councilor Sally Mayer said she thinks just about everything coming out of the pound should be spayed or neutered.

Mayer ushered through a controversial ordinance, known by its acronym HEART, that, among other things, requires owners to spay and neuter dogs and cats. HEART survived a court challenge and went into effect in August.

"Once we start getting any kind of animal into the pound, we have to recognize it as a coming problem," Mayer said, referring to pet trends like potbellied pigs. "At this point, we don't need any animals coming out of the pound and reproducing."

Raising the cost to $15 might help the animals in the end, as well, Mayer said.

"There's always a fine line between making adoption fees too high and not high enough," she said. "People don't value anything they get for free."

Some animals, like birds, aren't nearly as much of a population-control problem as their land-side counterparts; they also go quickly, Baca said.

"We sometimes get turkeys; people come and adopt them for $2 so they can have them in their yards," Baca said. "Geese, too. They actually make good watch dogs. If people come up to the house, they honk and sometimes chase them."

The "barn duck" - which can't be released into the wild, because it's been domesticated - and the peacock hen fall into the category of friendly and interesting yard pets, he said.

In his 12 years of working for Animal Services, Baca, 32, has seen some strange things.

"We've had cows, pigs, horses, llamas, emus - those usually go up for a sealed bid when we get them," Baca said. "The majority of exotic animals we get are snakes, spiders and alligators."

Alligators?

"A lot of people go to pet stores and adopt them as a little animal that's this big," Baca said, holding out his thumb and index finger. "But then it grows up to be this huge thing that can eat children."

Alligators, which aren't as uncommon as you'd think, are most often given to the Rio Grande Zoo, although there are a few rescue operations that take them.

The odd array of creatures is due to the shelter's mandate: Take all species, said Anna Sanchez, marketing director, who's worked there for almost two years.

"We can't turn anything away - that's the city ordinance," Sanchez said.

That means the shelter gets creatures that have escaped from rural farms or ranches near Albuquerque, as well as wildlife that has entered the city from nearby forests, Baca said.

"We had a call for a baby beaver once," Baca said. "People didn't know what it was."

Animal Services officers found the creature in a city park, and when they tried to corral it, it ran into a nearby driveway.

"We picked him up, and he was cute and fuzzy," Baca said. "We knocked on the door and said `Are you missing a beaver?' The guy said `Yeah.' It turned out to be OK, though. He was a wildlife preservationist who had rescued it."

Baca has rescued many deer and bear cubs that have wandered into the city. For those, Animal Services works with the Fish and Wildlife Department to reintroduce them to the wild, he said.

Baca, who was raised around relatives' farms and ranches in the North Valley, said hanging out with all the unusual creatures satisfies his longstanding love of nature. He's especially fond of wild animals like deer, owls and hawks.

"I was always the outdoors type that likes all animals, all critters," Baca said.

He's even adopted a few exotic animals himself: a cockatiel and a couple baby pigs.

"And we have a turtle," Baca said. "He's somewhere around our yard, but he's hibernating right now."