BeWild Reptile Rescue

Marzen is a beautiful 7 year old female crested gecko who was surrendered this weekend. She looks to be in great shape and should be up for adoption after a 30 day quarantine period!

Wee Heavy and Saison are two geckos who were surrendered this week. Wee Heavy is a 1 year old crested gecko who was purchased from a reptile expo. He is only 7 grams and definitely small for this age, he should weigh about twice as much. We’ll work on getting him comfortable and eating well here!

Saison is a 2.5 year old female leopard gecko who has had persistent eye issues. Her owner brought her to a vet, who cleared material out of her eyes and prescribed an antibiotic eye drop. Unfortunately, this did not help, and she has been losing weight since then. Saison had not eaten in over a month, and has never been given a multivitamin containing vitamin A.

We were hoping this was going to be a simple hypovitaminosis A case, as we’ve got that treatment down really well and have had great success with these cases! Unfortunately, the right eye looks pushed out of the correct position and partially proptosed (coming out of the eye socket). This may have happened due to a severe accumulation of material around the eye or iatrogenic trauma from trying to remove the material previously.

We flushed Saison’s eyes, did a fluorescein stain to check for ulcers, and applied an antibiotic ointment to help lubricate. We are also starting her on an oral anti-inflammatory medication, and we gave her oral fluids and a multivitamin. We will start her on a slow refeeding plan to gain weight. Unfortunately, we do think she’ll likely have to have that eye removed surgically. We will monitor it for the next few weeks as she gets stable for surgery, but it does not look viable long term.

We took in 4 snakes this week from someone who was concerned they were having health issues. Congrats to Amy, who won our naming theme at the auction - we are now on a beers theme!

Porter, the ball python, has a history of respiratory issues. He did have some mild mucous buildup in his mouth on physical exam. We did not notice any respiratory signs in the other 3 snakes.

Dunkle, the corn snake, is a little overweight but otherwise in good condition. Gruit, the kingsnake, has an odd spinal/ribcage deformity that he was apparently born with. We will be getting radiographs of this to confirm. Winter is a true red tail boa who looks to be in great shape, and is really gorgeous.

We’ll be closely monitoring these snakes in quarantine and sending out some PCR testing for nidovirus.

Goby is an adorable baby corn snake who was surrendered for “striking.” We have not observed this behavior yet, but baby snakes are mostly prey animals who are naturally scared of larger predators, like humans. Defensive behavior is normal in young or unsocialized snakes, and it does not mean they’re aggressive!

Goby only ate 1 meal for his owners and weighs 8 grams, so we are definitely going to focus on regular meals and weight gain before he goes up for adoption!

We just wanted to take this time to thank everyone who helped support our silent auction fundraiser 💖

Whether you donated an item, purchased one, attended, volunteered, or shared our posts - thank you from the bottom of our hearts! Your support allowed us to raise $5,676!!!

I say this all the time, but we truly cannot do what we do without the beautiful community we've been lucky enough to build. As you all know, we're working with species that don't necessarily get the same love and kindness as your more typical pets. They need those who understand them to work twice as hard to protect them - and you all have always done that in spades.

These funds are allowing us to start the process of purchasing and erecting a greenhouse to provide winter housing for our rescued turtles and tortoises. And not a moment too soon, because I'm pretty sure we're not going to be able to lug Acorn in on chilly nights for much longer!

Help us get Arowana specialist care!

Arowana is an adult male bearded dragon who was surrendered a few weeks ago. His previous owners did a great job with him and brought him to the vet multiple times for a presumed eye infection. They tried several medications, which unfortunately did not help, and can’t afford further testing.

Arowana has had intermittent eye issues in his left eye for months now. We’ve done bloodwork and x-rays, which were both normal aside from soft tissue swelling. We sent out a PCR to University of Florida for Encephalitozoon pogonae, a microsporidian organism that can cause eye issues. This came back negative.

Arowana’s next steps are to visit NCSU’s Exotic Animal Medicine Service for an advanced workup, which may include seeing an ophthalmologist or cardiologist. We are able to remove his eye surgically with our staff vets if needed, but we want to make sure this is the best treatment option moving forward before committing to this procedure. Swollen eyes and lethargy can also be a sign of heart disease, so we want to rule out any other concerning factors.

Please donate or share if you can. We really hope we can get to the bottom of this and help him recover!

UPDATE: REUNITED WITH OWNER

A little less than 1 hour left on our silent auction! Don’t forget - some items are available for shipping, so you can bid virtually if you’re not local. If you’re local, it’s not too late to stop by and see us!

https://givebutter.com/c/bewild-2026-silent-auction-hg8pfi/auction

Phailozoo Reptile Enclosure donated this beautiful 4x2x2 we have set up at the silent auction today! We’ll be here until 4! Come meet our merry band of reptiles…plus Jerome 😂