Catching an alligator roaming free in the Humboldt Park Lagoon turned Frank Robb into an instant celebrity, and now those involved in the animal’s care are preparing to send it to a zoo in Florida.
At the recommendation of experts at Brookfield Zoo and Robb himself, the alligator that brought crowds out to the West Side’s Humboldt Park Lagoon will be flying Thursday to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, said Kelley Gandurski, director of Chicago Animal Care and Control.
“It’s a five-star place for alligators,” Robb said Wednesday while touring animal control headquarters. “He’ll never have any worries for the rest of his life.”
Gandurski had said earlier Wednesday that the animal was unlikely to remain in Chicago, instead going to “a place where he can live out his natural life.”
Robb, a Florida trapper brought in by the city to replace a volunteer trapper, won’t be involved in moving the animal. That’s being handled by Lincoln Park Zoo staff. But Robb has become bound up with the alligator’s celebrity status, with random people now approaching him to ask for a picture.
He threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Reds-Cubs game Tuesday evening.
And Wednesday morning, the Chicago Park District had him turn on Buckingham Fountain.
“When I came here, I had a plan where I was going to try and get in here, accomplish the job I had set forth in the city of Chicago and get out of here, and nobody ever knows I was here,” Robb said Wednesday morning after starting the fountain.
Robb started catching alligators with his uncle when he was in high school. That was more than 20 years ago. He’s now a contracted alligator trapper in the state of Florida, according to Tammy Sapp, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“You’re on 24/7, 365. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, and you get a phone call,” Robb said. “You stop Thanksgiving dinner and go catch an alligator.”
But Robb said he would never forget catching the alligator in Humboldt Park Lagoon.
He was exhausted. It was the middle of the night, and Robb and an employee with animal control had already walked around the lagoon eight times.
“We walked until we about couldn’t walk anymore, searching everything, looking for eye shine,” Robb said.
Then he spotted the alligator.
“I waited about five minutes, and I went ahead and vocalized,” Robb said, referring to a sound mimicking a noise alligators make.
The alligator emerged from the water and responded with a noise of his own. Robb then caught it with one cast of hooks attached to a fishing rod.
He grabbed the alligator’s front and back arms after he reeled him in. He threw him on the bank, taped his jaws and hogtied him.
And then he cried with his companion from animal control.
“There was so much emotion involved,” Robb said. “There were so many people counting on me. The emotion just fell out. I threw the alligator over my shoulder and let it loose.”
