After over a week of being at-large in a lagoon in a park in Chicago, a five-foot alligator dubbed Chance the Snapper by the public has been successfully removed by a Florida reptile expert.
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Chance the Snapper was first spotted in the lagoon in Chicago’s Humboldt Park on July 9 when he was snapped (sorry) by a photographer at a birthday party. It’s not entirely clear how he ended up in the lagoon, but he is believed to have been an unwanted pet, dumped there by someone who didn’t put all that much thought into where alligators should live or how they interact with the public. He was named Chance the Snapper as the result of a public poll, with voters picking the name over ‘Ruth Gator-Ginsberg’, ‘Frank Lloyd Bite’, and the (frankly) vastly inferior ‘Croc Obama’.
Just landed and found out I gotta alligator
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 10, 2019
Chance managed to evade the authorities (namely, a Chicago Herpetological Society volunteer known as Alligator Bob) for a substantial period of time, until Frank Robb, the Floridian alligator tracker, managed to reel him in on 200-pound test fishing line.
In the aftermath, both Robb and Chance turned up for a press conference, with Chance wearing a bow-tie for the occasion:
A final and MOST IMPORTANT update: Chance the Snapper was wearing a little bow tie like the prince he is. pic.twitter.com/eofCSZ1saD
— Kelly Bauer (@BauerJournalism) July 16, 2019
According to the Washington Post, Chance will be permanently re-located to a sanctuary or zoo, where he can peacefully live out the rest of his days without startling parkgoers.
The icing on the cake for this story is that, shortly after becoming an alligator-rescuing hero, Robb took up an invitation to throw the opening pitch at a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field.
Frank Robb, better known as “Alligator Robb,” throws out the first pitch at Wrigley Field. #chancethesnapper #Cubs pic.twitter.com/jwjO6j7XpY
— Phillip Thompson (@_phil_thompson) July 16, 2019
Substantially more heartwarming than our one alligator story yesterday, in which a very real US police department issued a very real warning that flushing drugs down the toilet might create ‘meth-gators’. Real swings and roundabouts in the alligatorsphere, I tell you what.
