By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Tom Sieving’s police division van isn’t equipped with the customary handcuffs or tasers.
As the city’s animal control officer, his tools of the trade include several live traps, plus treats like cheese curls and cocoa puffs to attract unwanted four-legged intruders.
Sieving is the officer who citizens call when they have raccoons up in their attics or squirrels down their chimneys. And he’s the guy who fellow police officers call when they encounter furry, scaly or winged intruders.
He’s who police called at 4 a.m. when they were serving a search warrant and came upon a 4-foot alligator.
“Let’s call up Tom,” Sieving said, with a smile.
In that case, Sieving picked up the gator by the tail and took it to the police station – since it was in violation of the city’s dangerous and exotic animal ordinance. He put it in a large aquarium in his office.
“He ate goldfish, so I had to go to the store,” he said. A few days later, an alligator rescue program from Tennessee picked up the alligator.
But come Sept. 20, Sieving will be retiring after 18 years as Bowling Green’s animal control officer. He has worked for four police chiefs – Tom Votava, Gary Spencer, Brad Conner and Tony Hetrick.
During those years, there have been few alligators – but plenty of opposums, woodchucks, raccoons and, of course, skunks.
“I had one yesterday,” Sieving said last week about the creatures that can stink up everything in the area with one squirt. “You learn how to handle them.”
Sieving, however, didn’t start this job with that knowledge.
“Oh yeah, I got sprayed a couple times,” he said, again smiling.
Sieving’s typical day starts at 8 a.m.
“People know I get in at 8 o’clock, because I start getting calls at 8:02,” he said.
Citizens call about unwanted four-legged invaders in their homes, bats hanging from their ceilings, or critters tunneling under their sheds. Sieving sets up live traps, then checks them every 24 hours.
Or with bats, “I slip a coffee can over him and away I go,” he said.
Sieving, who has a beagle named Sammi at home, has also learned to use the catch pole – even with domestic pets in some cases. He has been bitten by two cats and two dogs.
“So I use tools now,” he said. Thick gloves just don’t cut it. “If you can sew it, a cat can bite through it.”
Sieving gets calls about cats stuck up in trees. He calmly tells citizens that cats who climb up trees are capable of getting themselves down.
“I always tell people, ‘I’ve never seen cat bones in a tree before.’ That worked until one was up for three days.”
So Sieving had to ask for a city bucket truck to help get the cat down.
Sieving likes working in a job where people are glad to see him. Citizens wave when they see him pass by in the animal control van.
The same can’t be said of when he fills in for the parking technicians.
“Everybody wants to see me,” when he shows up for animal control, Sieving said. But recently when he did parking control, “the first day someone flipped me the bird.”
Sieving has provided temporary lodging for boa constrictors and other snakes in the aquarium in his office. Those scaly guests always bring several fellow police officers down to his office in the basement of the police division.
“If anybody finds there’s a snake in there, I get a lot of visitors,” he said.
Then there was the call about the big lizard crawling up the outside of South Main Elementary School. Sieving captured the 3-foot black lizard with spots, and took him over to BGSU’s herpetology lab to see if staff there could identify the type of lizard.
“I didn’t know what it was or how to take care of it,” he said.
One of the students immediately recognized the type of lizard, since she had one at home just like it. She wanted to adopt it – and Sieving said she could if the owner didn’t show up. He heard from the student soon after, when she realized that the escaped lizard was actually hers that had broken out of her home.
BGSU students don’t create many extra challenges – except a jump in stray cats every year after spring graduation.
“Typically in May when they go, the cat population goes up,” he said.
Sieving is familiar with the city’s dangerous and exotic animal ordinance, which prohibits such animals as badgers, anteaters, hyenas, sharks, water buffalo, baboons, kangaroos and ostriches – none of which Sieving has encountered in the city.
“No, never had an ostrich,” he said with a smile.
“One time we thought we had a bear,” he said. A citizen called to report seeing a bear in a field close to the Rosenboom plant on the south west side of Bowling Green. But when Sieving got out his binoculars to check it out, the mystery was solved.
“Here it was, a guy with a chainsaw and a hoodie up, bending over,” Sieving said. He shared the binoculars with the concerned citizen to ease his mind.
Sieving has gotten calls about supposed cougars or bobcats, but he has failed to find tracks or catch one in a live trap.
“I suppose it’s possible, but very unlikely,” he said.
Though he’s handled boa constrictors, he has never had to deal with a poisonous snake.
“I think I could do it,” he said with a grin. “I’m not afraid of anything. The only thing that really freaks me out is rats.”
As Sieving prepares to retire, he plans to continue farming, but otherwise, he is uncertain about his future.
“I’ve worked my whole life,” he said with a grin. “I’m going to have to do something.”
“I’ll miss all the people,” Sieving said. “This is the best job I’ve ever had.”
