widespread enforcement push<\/a> from state, local and federal law enforcement agencies that has transformed the world-famous street. Officers have also focused on clearing homeless encampments and have said that their presence deters crime.<\/p>\nThe push has sent vendors, performers and snakes into hibernation and driven an ongoing debate over who Bourbon Street is for.<\/p>\n
![\"Bourbon](\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\")
<\/p>\n
New Orleans police officers stand with a roughly 10-foot-long python that police confiscated on Bourbon Street on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024.<\/p>\n
PHOTO FROM LOUISIANA GOV. JEFF LANDRY<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a criminal, and then there is a regular working class,\u201d said Laney Greco, who was arrested in May 2024 for bringing a 10-foot, 8-inch Burmese python to Bourbon Street and Orleans Avenue. \u201cYou\u2019re hurting the working-class people who are trying to make tourism better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Running afoul of the law<\/p>\n
The animal owners ran up against multiple state and city codes. State law prohibits the possession of constrictor snakes longer than eight feet long, and the sale of reptiles or amphibians without a license. New Orleans municipal code prohibits keeping any wild or exotic animal as a pet, including snakes that will grow to larger than three feet, monkeys, raccoons, squirrels, leopards, alligators, and roosters.<\/p>\n
Per an agreement with State Police, 50 agents have enforced those and other rules in the city during major events, such as Bayou Classic, New Year\u2019s, and Mardi Gras, Clark said. Records show Wildlife Agents were involved in 84 incidents on Bourbon Street since 2024, mostly for charges like drug and firearm possession.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Saffron the opossum, seen here in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries on Feb. 10, 2024 and Neuty the nutria who was spared being siezed by the state, by concerned politicians in March 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(Left photo provided by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Right photo by Doug MacCash, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune) <\/p>\n
Department records show agents encountered five snakes, one opossum and an unspecified number of red-eared slider turtles from February to May 2024. The agents\u2019 presence appears to have been a deterrent, as few, other than Eurrell Johnson, who was caught toting a 3 to 4-foot alligator down Bourbon Street on Feb. 15, have recently dared to bring their pets to the famous strip.<\/p>\n
In all seven of the animal encounters, agents slapped the owners with a citation. Four creatures were confiscated, while three others were left with their owners. Only one owner, Greco, was arrested, having broken multiple city codes, according to the state\u2019s incident report.<\/p>\n
Mixed reactions<\/p>\n
Jeff Dorson, executive director of the Humane Society of Louisiana, said he supports enforcement of laws keeping animals off the strip.<\/p>\n
\u201cWild animals and Bourbon street aren\u2019t a good mix,\u201d said Dorson. \u201cThe noise, the crowd, that\u2019s the opposite of how these animals like to survive: away from people in wilderness. Not on Bourbon Street.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christian Pendleton, a commissioner with the French Quarter Management District and general manager of Brennan\u2019s restaurant, said the change to Bourbon Street has been welcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a neighborhood first. This is people\u2019s homes first. This is people\u2019s businesses first,\u201d he said. \u201cSnakes can really freak people out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the enforcement has drawn criticism. When Saffron the opossum was swept up in the Carnival 2024 dragnet, a petition to \u201cbring Saffron home\u201d to his owner William Voiles drew nearly 14,000 signatures, as New Orleanians accused the state of overreaching into the private relationship between a man and his pet.<\/p>\n
Once she was released from jail, Greco attempted to continue caring for Sonny during its stay on the Northshore. After informing Wildlife Agent Jimmie Daniel that rats irritate Sonny\u2019s stomach, Greco arranged a meetup with Daniel at the Shell station beside the Twin Span Bridge to provide three live rabbits for the python\u2019s consumption, state records show.<\/p>\n
In an August interview, Greco said she had yet to receive an update on the snake\u2019s whereabouts. She didn\u2019t return calls last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope she isn\u2019t dead, but it\u2019s been almost two years now,\u201d Greco then said.<\/p>\n
Though citations involving animals are down, the creatures haven\u2019t disappeared from Bourbon Street entirely, Pendleton said.<\/p>\n
Just last week, Pendleton said he spotted two people riding Segways down the busy strip with snakes wrapped around their necks.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re like, \u2018Ugh. Here we go again,\u2019\u201d Pendleton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Snake handlers chat on Bourbon Street Sunday, March 15, 2020. STAFF PHOTO BY SCOTT THRELKELD Among the m\u00e9lange…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[8803,79,201],"class_list":["post-553255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-hardwall","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}