The ‘secret life’ of Garry and his exotic pets
GARRY MURPHY has always been an animal lover – and always had pets.
He grew up surrounded by every kind of furry friend and reptile imaginable, from dogs and fish to parrots and rats.
But when he was a teenager, Garry got a pet snake, and he’s never really been without one since.
And he loved them so much that he started breeding them as a hobby, so the slithery characters multiplied in numbers.
Garry’s animals don’t live in a zoo... they take up residence in his back garden!
For years, the 41-year-old, from Alva, Clackmannanshire, has shared his semi-detatched home not only with his wife and two kids, but more than 60 snakes – some 20ft long – and three Argentinian tegus.
Of course, his neighbours already thought he was mad.
But Garry took his hobby a step further when he recently welcomed two caiman crocodiles to the clan, after being granted a licence which allows him to keep the exotic animals as pets.
He’s believed to be only the second person in Scotland granted permission to keep alligators and crocs.
And as news spreads, he is being hailed the country’s answer to Steve Irwin. He even shares the same birthday as the Aussie Crocodile Hunter.
Forget Crocodile Dundee... now it’s Crocodile Clackmannanshire!
Construction manager Garry is housing the carnivorous predators in a purpose-built enclosure he has already created for the snakes in his back garden.
But he’s planning to build a pond, which will give them more space as they grow.
The baby crocs are only about 10 inches long at the moment, but fully grown they’ll reach several metres in length… so he’d better make it snappy!
Overall, it’s a pretty unusual pet. But, to Garry, keeping crocs feels just as normal as having a dog or a cat. In his opinion, they were all wild animals at one point.
His snake keeping has been such a success that we can only imagine their new companions will feel just as at home.
Even if it takes a while, crocodile!