A close encounter with an alligator occurred Friday when visitors to Philadelphia’s Love Park were cooling down at a fountain.
However, the lizard, which was being led by a little girl on a leash, was also only attempting to beat the heat under the cool spray of the fountain.
Joie Henney, a Philadelphia resident and long-time reptile rescuer who has worked with alligators for 30 years, has an emotional support animal named Wally the Alligator.
Video captured by onlookers at the park over the weekend shows the alligator strolling about on his leash, waving to visitors, and even cooling down by reclining on his stomach in a puddle.
Henney, the owner of Wally, collaborates with his close friend Mary Johnson and her kids to manage many social media profiles that chronicle Wally’s existence. Henney was nearby his pet that day in the park.
Henney told CNN, “They simply had a fun.” As soon as they learned Wally was going to be there, people flocked to embrace him and take pictures with him.
The video on WallyGator’s TikTok, which has received more than 122K views, was subsequently seen by social media users after Wally’s arrival at the park on Friday astounded both onlookers and them.
Most guests were awestruck by the reptile, but other individuals were concerned for the partygoers’ safety.
One user enquired, “Are you permitted to walk gators around Philly?” and the account replied that law enforcement had given them the all-clear to stroll around the park.
Another commenter bemoaned, “Yet so many skateboarders have been arrested there.”
One person made the quip, “I would have bet everything this was in Florida.”
However, a lot of supporters said they would go to Philadelphia to meet Wally.
One person screamed, “Ok, so now I have to travel to Phil just to see Wally!”
Wally entered Henney’s life seven years ago when he was taken out of a Florida lagoon owing to an overpopulation of alligators and another gator-rescuing acquaintance asked Henney for assistance.
Henney said that there were too many gators in the region and went on to say that in Florida, so-called “nuisance alligators” must either be put to death or taken into custody.
Since that time, the two have never been apart.
Henney said, “Wally has been significantly different from any alligator I’ve worked with in the last 30 years.” He doesn’t seem angry. He doesn’t act hostile. Since the day he was apprehended, he hasn’t. We were never able to figure out why.
He is just endearing. He snatches my blankets and pillows as I sleep with him. He is really amazing.
Henney was successful in getting Wally approved as an emotional support animal in 2019.
He has found solace in the alligator while receiving cancer radiation treatments.
Henney has previously remarked about Wally, “He got me out of a truly deep despair,” in an interview. I declined to accept the anti-depression medication that my doctor wanted to prescribe me.
Wally has so served as Henney’s treatment instead.
Henney asserts that alligators are simpler to teach than dogs and that he is not worried that Wally would bite someone.
Wally is the only alligator I’ve ever seen that won’t bite, he said. It’s incredible and simply difficult to believe,
While emotional support animals may not be granted any special rights under federal law, Wally is permitted to accompany Henney practically everywhere, with the exception of certain restaurants that have reportedly refused to serve Wally because they are concerned that the gator could transmit salmonella.
With the assistance of family friends, the duo has continued to produce video for Wally’s TikTok and Instagram since making headlines a year ago.
3.7 billion people have seen Henney’s social media videos, and Wally is now in the lead in the America’s Favorite Pet Animal Kingdom competition, which raises money for animal rescue and rehabilitation. $10,000 will be awarded to the contest’s winner.
Henney, who is still fighting illness, also has a GoFundMe page to raise money for the care of Wally and other needy reptiles.
Since alligators are sometimes abandoned when they grow too big for their owners to care for them, wildlife specialists have lobbied for new legislation that forbid alligators from being kept as pets.
Alligators do not make acceptable home pets since they are still wild creatures, according to Henney, who has previously said that he makes care to highlight this point during his instructional gator presentations.
He continues, though, by expressing his desire to “put a smile on people’s faces — this world is hard enough” and to “urge people to [be] good to other people” via the use of Wally’s narrative.