Penny the American Alligator Celebrates Birthday In Norristown Zoo

Editor's note: image is of an American alligator, but not Penny.

Norristown, PA -- Monday was a special day at the Elmwood Park Zoo.

One of the Zoo's distinguished residents, Penny the American alligator, celebrated her 15th birthday.

Every spring, Penny makes the perilous journey from her winter quarters to her summer home at the Zoo.
But she doesn’t make it alone.

A crew of six veterinary technicians must corral, subdue, muzzle, and then wrestle the nearly 200 pound lizard across the park.

“If you’ve ever seen Steve Irwin jump on a crocodile, it’s kind of the same thing,” said Cierra Allen, a veterinary technician that helps move Penny.

Technicians must first hold Penny still and blindfold her, before placing electrical tape around the tip of her snout to be sure she doesn’t snap at them during the journey.

“She has more muscles to close her mouth than she does to open it, which is why electrical tape will work,” Allen said.

Penny was first brought to Elmwood Park in 2007.

A deep, dissatisfied hissing noise is heard from Penny as she is muzzled.

As the veterinarians first hoist her in the air, she whips her powerful body back and forth, nearly bucking them off.

Because reptiles don’t take anaesthesia well, she is “awake as ever” for the duration of the journey.

Once she’s moved from the narrow halls of her indoor exhibit to the outside air and the bed of a truck, she seems to calm, however.

And when she’s first placed in her new exhibit, her tail almost seems to wag in dog-like fashion.

In a tense moment, technicians hold her mouth shut while they cut off the electrical tape around her mouth.

As the final piece is severed, the technician releases her grip and backs quickly away from Penny.

But Penny seems to have forgotten her earlier distress. Satisfied, curious, snout priggishly testing the air in the new environs, she pads forth down a rocky slope into her home.