"Watchgator" seized protecting pot plants

10:38 AM PST on Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Department of Justice agents raided an East Hemet house Monday night and seized almost 2,300 marijuana plants valued at least $1.5 million -- and a four-foot alligator being used to help guard the stash.

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Alligator the Size of Cocker Spaniel Found in Hemet Home

By JEFF JOHNSON and JACK NOYES

Updated 6:16 AM PST, Tue, Mar 8, 2011 |

PHELAN, Calif. (NBC) -- An endangered Golden Eagle that disappeared from a Southern California sanctuary last month is back home after turning up 50 miles away.

PHELAN • The spray of white gravel is still there in front of the house on Joshua Street. It was put there to make sure the big black bus could be moved for the big reveal on national television. Just as it was a year ago, the sky is gray and the dirt road is muddy and slick.

But a great deal has happened to the Almquist family since they were featured on Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

We never cease to be amazed by people's attempts to make wild animals into pets (as if there weren't enough domesticated animals out there in need of homes), and the Riverside County Department of Animal Services had a doozy of a case earlier this week when it confiscated a mule deer apparently being kept as a pet by a Glen Avon man. (It's illegal to keep a deer, along with many other species of wildlife, without a permit in California.)  

by Lindsay Barnett

County says no to Forever Wild's visitors center.

Exotic animal shelter must pave Phalan dirt road, at a cost of almost $1 million.                                           

Almquist family of Phelan will be featured in episode of Extreme Home Makeover.

by Beau Yarbrough

200 reptiles abandoned in Hesperia

"This is absolutely the biggest reptile rescue I've ever done by far" Joel Almquist, owner of Forever Wild Exotic Animal Sanctuary.

Plight of the Wild Ones

A 6-year-old black leopard with a long face and thinning coat yawned lazily in the desert sun stretching its bony legs to expose where its toes had been chopped off for use in voodoo rituals.