Carol McAlice Currie

Statesman Journal

There are just a few of the bearded dragons left of the two dozen who frolicked under Sherrie Baldwin's heat lamps earlier this week and were threatened with possible euthanasia.

Since the story broke on the Statesman Journal's website Monday night, the community has responded in droves to save the dragons.

As the paper first reported earlier today, more than 50 individuals have contacted Baldwin, and offered to take in one or more of her scaly bearded dragons. She said she had a line of people waiting at her door early Thursday, and by mid-day, she'd given away more than a dozen of them and had others coming to take most of the remaining reptiles.

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She said the story attracted calls of salvation from New York, Tennessee, Texas, Indiana and Georgia.

"My phone's been ringing off the hook with people who are even offering to pay the air freight to have them flown to other states," Baldwin said. "It's just made me cry."

When a Statesman Journal reporter and photographer arrived this morning, a couple from Dallas was in the process of claiming one male and a pregnant female, and another young man drove up from Falls City to take three more.

Jeff Fisher said he would have taken the remaining five, but he didn't want to take two males, who might fight.

Calling them her "kids," Baldwin said it was bittersweet to give them up, but she's grateful for the kindness of strangers who've helped her by giving them new homes.

She said she phoned the attorney representing the Sunset Village Mobile Home Park landlord who'd given her 15 days to find homes for the 24 bearded dragons to tell him she'd complied with the order, but said Charles M. Greeff had not yet returned her call. She said she hoped she'll now be able to stay in her home, which she owns, but pays space rent. She said a church group has volunteered to come help her with the cleaning requirements also mandated by the landlord.

Baldwin has been rescuing reptiles for more than two years, and in August, told the Statesman Journal about saving one with rescue breathing after it was found floating in its pool. She confirmed for the newspaper then that she had 24 of the scaly critters, and this week received a correction demand letter from an attorney representing the landlord.

Baldwin was generous with the new owners. Jacob Smith and his fiancée Mary Harper had driven to the mobile park from Dallas to claim two of reptiles. Smith is opening the Smith Family Dojo martial arts center in Ellendale Plaza in early November, and his logo has two dragons on it. He said he read the article about the bearded dragons needing new homes, and he immediately thought they'd make perfect mascots for his center.

He took Mr. Checker and Miss Houdini, and Baldwin gave the new pet parents a demonstration on how to give medication via syringe to the reptiles since they have a parasite Baldwin discovered at the veterinarian's this week.

She gave the couple five days' worth of the meds, and showed them how to open the dragon's mouth to administer it without getting bit or scratched. Harper remarked at how attune the dragons were to their owner's voice.

"Every time she speaks, this one here turns it head toward her to "listen," Harper said.

Baldwin did not charge a dime for the dragons, and made continued veterinary care the only condition of giving them away.

More updates will be made available as dragons are adopted.