PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia, or ACCT Philly, deals with some pretty wild calls as the city’s only open intake facility — including a few alligator rescue calls last month alone.
In this edition of “Into the Wild,” a two-year veteran ACCT Philly animal control officer describes his extensive background dealing with exotic animals.
“This is a snake tong,” said Tony Ikonen on a recent day-in-the-life tour of the equipment in his truck that he uses to safely remove or catch animals.
“Here we have a secure wildlife cage — let's say for raccoons and stuff.”
Ikonen mostly deals with cats and dogs, but he has had his share of encounters with more exotic species: “Bald pythons, boa constrictors, iguanas, non- and native bird species — like finches from Africa and stuff.”
Less than a month ago, the team got a call from a woman needing to remove her ex-husband’s large, angry, hissing alligator from the basement of her North Philadelphia row home.
No matter how big, Ikonen says, he is ready for gators and crocodiles.
“I worked in Australia for six and a half years with crocodiles — all sorts of crocodilians,” he said.
And if you ever wondered how to catch and subdue one of them, he’ll tell you.
“So, you can put a towel over their eyes,” he said.
Kids, don’t try this at home.
“You jump on them from behind. When you jump on, you literally hold the mouth shut and you get electrical tape. … They have no power opening the jaw. All the power is closing. So, you can hold the biggest croc in the world with one hand and you can hold its mouth shut.”
Just be mindful of the animal’s powerful tail, he said.
And no nicknames. No “Crocodile Dundee.”
“No,” he said. “Just Tony.”
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Ikonen said he feels pretty confident with his on-the-job equipment. There is one tool he would like to add to the arsenal, but he adds, officers are not allowed to have it.
“I do wish we had access to sedative darts — like blow darts or a dart gun,” he said.
Ikonen said he used to work with blow darts in Mexico.
“I used to tag wild jaguars with a blow dart, and then we put collars on them,” he said. “We used to tag wild jaguars on the Mayan coast. I lived there for 10 1/2 years.”
Any jaguars in North Philly?
“No, not yet. Thank goodness,” he said.
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