Loose lizard finds new home in righteous Ridgewood reptile rescue
/
Ridgewood resident Matthew Jones rescued a bearded dragon that was on the loose in Grover Cleveland Park Tuesday. Photo courtesy of Jones
By David Brand
An exotic lizard on the loose in a Western Queens park found a new home Tuesday, thanks to a local bartender’s righteous Ridgewood reptile rescue.
Families visiting Grover Cleveland Park in the northwest corner of the neighborhood noticed the scaly lizard, a bearded dragon, calmly basking in the sun near the swings at around 3 p.m. Tuesday. The reptile is definitely not native to the Ridgewood-Maspeth borderlands, but is a relatively common household pet.
Parkgoer Lauren Ann Urban posted photos of the bearded dragon on a local Facebook group and asked neighbors if anyone could save it.
Fortunately for the foot-long lizard, Matthew Jones, a bartender and carpenter, happened to see the post and immediately responded.
“I’m coming over there now to help please don’t let him go anywhere he’ll die,” said Jones, a reptile buff who studied herpetology in college.
Urban pledged to monitor the lizard until Jones arrived with a pet carrier. Other neighbors kept tabs on the live rescue as it played out on Facebook, while a group of children swarmed the area to watch the coldblooded critter warm itself in the sun.
Jones quickly arrived on his motorcycle and coaxed the lizard into his carrier. His pledge to keep his new pet safe and healthy with a varied diet of bugs and worms earned praise from neighbors.
“Hero shit,” one woman wrote on Facebook.
“This entire thread warms my cold black heart. Matthew Jones, thank you for being a good human,” said another.
Jones said he plans to keep the bearded dragon as a pet after years of caring for other reptiles. He named the lizard “Mister Peppy” after a little reptilian creature rescued by the main character Fry in the show Futurama and said he suspects it was abandoned by its owner or escaped its tank.
He also welcomed the community-building aspect of the reptile rescue.
“People need some good news,” he said.
